Thursday, 10 February 2005

Thursday, 10 February 2005

Thursday, 10 February 2005

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): Next week in the House priority will be given to the remaining stages of the Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill, the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Amendment Bill, and the Committee stage of the Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill. Priority will also be given to any first readings on the Order Paper.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): Noticing that the Government clearly wants to get the Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill dealt with by the end of, certainly, the next session of Parliament, can we expect that there will be no urgency next week?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): Yes, I am hopeful the House will be able to deal with the Committee stage of that bill without urgency at all.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Music—Commercial Radio

1. DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Broadcasting: What progress has been made on the Government objective of promoting increased levels of New Zealand music on commercial radio?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Broadcasting): The latest figures released by the Radio Broadcasters Association show that New Zealand music accounted for 18.6 percent of music played on commercial radio in 2004. This exceeds the agreed target and is well above—in fact, it is 10 times above—the 2 percent achieved in 1995 amidst the reign of the non-patriotic, culturally bankrupt National Party, which would not know Shihad from Pacifier.

Mr SPEAKER: The member will withdraw the last comment he made and apologise.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I withdraw and apologise.

Dianne Yates: What effect has the voluntary code of practice had on the music industry?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: New Zealand music is stronger than ever, recently achieving six Kiwi singles in the Top 10—a new high for New Zealand music. Today the New Zealand music industry is a $146 million industry, and is growing rapidly on the back of exports all around the world. The creative sector, of which the music industry is part, now accounts for 3 percent of New Zealand’s total GDP, and we have artists such as the Datsuns, Hayley Westenra, and Steriogram that are reaching audiences all over the world. Our music is heard by Americans almost as often as we hear it in this country. We will continue to support New Zealand music in this way, and this will be one of the dividing lines between ourselves in favour of New Zealand culture, and the National Party that does not favour it.

Dianne Yates: How does this support the Labour Party objective to promote New Zealand culture?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The Labour-led Government has put culture at the centre of its programme. In the area of music we have supported, through New Zealand On Air, a range of initiatives such as New Zealand Music Month and Play it Strange, the music industry export development group, the funding of the New Zealand Music Industry Commission, and, of course, the highly successfully Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment programme that has placed 2,500 people in employment. Music is going places, unlike that band “Don Brash and the Divided Nationals”—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: I am not having the member shout out at me like that. The member was talking to me in the second person. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Gerry Brownlee: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I am now going to deal with the issue. The last sentence was completely out of order. The member will withdraw and apologise.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I withdraw and apologise.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: As the Minister has put into the arena the issue of cultural sensitivity and awareness, how do the Minister and his colleagues feel about Marian Hobbs calling one of our leading female singers “Rick Bunga” at an official function?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Bic Runga is known to Marian Hobbs, and is a friend of hers. Bic Runga is a much better singer than the member.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not ask the Minister any of the questions to which he sought to give an answer. I asked him how, if he is going to talk about cultural awareness and sensitivity, he and his colleagues feel about a Minister of the Crown calling a leading New Zealand singer “Rick Bunga” at an official function, not Bic Runga.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I think the member is struggling; we will leave him for now.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: The member will be seated. The member raised a point of order in the first instance and I want the Minister to answer the question please.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I am sure the Minister had a slip of the tongue and that she knows the answer extremely well. I personally know that she likes her music.

Police, Minister—Accountability

2. GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National), on behalf of Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty), to the Minister of Police: What did he mean when he said on television last night that “I take the rap when things start to break down”?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police): I am the Minister of Police and I am responsible for questions about the performance of police to this Parliament—as we have seen in the past week.

Gerry Brownlee: Does the Minister consider that if something looks broken, feels broken, and acts as if it is broken, like the police 111 system, then it is a breakdown; and is it not time that he, as he said he would, takes the rap? [Interruption]

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have been very tough on Opposition members if they interject during a question. Why is there a different standard for the Deputy Prime Minister, who interjected on the closing part of Gerry Brownlee’s question?

Mr SPEAKER: Because that is precisely the point. The member did not listen. The Minister did not interject during the asking of the question.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: He did!

Mr SPEAKER: Oh no, he did not; I listened very carefully.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Does that then not raise the prospect that if a question is asked that is clearly uncomfortable for a Minister struggling with his portfolio, all that the struggling Minister has to do is take his time getting out of his chair, so that the Deputy Prime Minister may offer the House one of his caustic barbs in order to make that struggling Minister feel a little bit better when he gets to his feet?

Mr SPEAKER: I take the member’s point. I think he has made a valid point of order. I will now be listening very, very closely indeed to any such similar comments. I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to withdraw that comment.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I withdraw.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: The reason we are having an inquiry is so that we can make sure that the system is improved and works well for all New Zealanders.

Martin Gallagher: Further to the Minister’s answer, what information does the Minister have about 111 calls to the police? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: I say to Mr English that is precisely what the point of order taken by Mr Brownlee was about. An interjection should not be made. I am now enforcing that. The member is warned once only, and that is the end of the matter. As far as I am concerned, we have had the question asked, and the answer must start. The member knows he cannot have an interjection, because of what happened when Dr Cullen did that—Mr Brownlee rightly pulled him up, and I ruled it out.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: I am advised by the police that communication centres receive 495,000 111 calls every year. This equates to 1,350 a day, or 56 every hour. The 111 system relies on human operators to deal with, often, distressed victims. The vast majority of 111 calls are dealt with effectively and appropriately. Any problems with the system are being considered by an independent review panel.

Ron Mark: Does the Minister fully understand the meaning of the term: “I take the rap when things start to break down.”, and does he understand that if things do not get a whole lot better real soon for the Minister of Police and the Commissioner of Police, one or both will be in real danger of losing the last shreds of confidence that the public has in their ability to administer their responsibilities—along with their jobs, their salaries, and their flash cars?

Mr SPEAKER: There were four questions there. Two can be answered.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Yes and no.

Deborah Coddington: Will the Minister take the rap when one of the 75 suspected paedophiles on the list given to the New Zealand Police last September is caught abusing a child, because the Minister’s police officers were ordered by national headquarters not to proceed with a national bust despite a team being in place, and so no arrests have been made; if not, why not?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: I have full confidence that the Department of Internal Affairs and the police are working to successfully solve that matter. I must say that the New Zealand Police received the information from the American customs department several months after the Australians did.

Gerry Brownlee: Does the Minister believe that, in the recent case of the young woman in Hamilton, she should have taken the advice of the Commissioner of Police and screamed down the phone in order to receive the appropriate attention; if not, what is he doing to ensure that screaming down the phone is not the only option available to New Zealand women who need police assistance when they are under attack?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: No, and the inquiry is dealing with those matters.

Gerry Brownlee: If the Minister cannot show leadership and sort out the problems within the 111 service so as to avoid further occurrences of women having to walk to get their own help, or being sent a taxi instead of a police car, will he take the rap and resign so that someone else can fix it?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: No. That is why we are having the review—so that those matters can be sorted out.

Hon Richard Prebble: I wonder whether the Minister would be kind enough to clarify his last answer, when he said “No.” When he said: “I take the rap when things … break down.”, was that just a hypothetical statement made by him, or does he accept that public confidence in the 111 service is breaking down, and that, if that is the case, the constitutional position in terms of taking the rap is to resign—which one is it?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: I said that, no, I will not resign. I have to say to the member that we are working very hard to make sure that the 111 system is working properly so that the public can have full confidence.

Ron Mark: How many more debacles with the 111 system will we have to reveal before this Minister finally does the honourable thing and steps aside, allowing someone more competent, more capable, and with stronger leadership to take over the job of providing safety and security to the men and women of this country?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: I repeat for the member, because I think it is very important, that the centres receive 495,000 111 calls per year—that is, almost half a million. I have to say that we are having a review so that we can improve the service to the public.

Gerry Brownlee: When the Minister said on television last night: “I take the rap when things start to break down.”, did he know that he had no intention of taking the rap regardless, it would seem, of what the review might say, or are there some circumstances in which he might resign honourably?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: I have to tell that member that the 111 system generally works very well, although there are occasions—and it seems that most of them have a human factor—when things are not right. We are having the review to see how we can improve the service. I would retire or resign only if we had results like the National Government had during the 1990s, with record numbers of crime.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Notwithstanding the answer that the Minister has just given and the likelihood of your saying that he has addressed the question, I assert that he was, in fact, asked whether he knew, when he said he would take the rap, that there were no circumstances in which he would. He has not answered that question. While we are not allowed to say it in the House, that does indicate that he was, at least, misrepresenting a position to the public.

Mr SPEAKER: No. The last sentence of the Minister’s answer addressed the question.

Question No. 3 to Minister

MARC ALEXANDER (United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The original question that I had written was intended for the Minister of Police, and I find no reason why it should have been transferred to the Minister of Justice instead.

Mr SPEAKER: There is no reason why the Government cannot do that if the responsibility lies within the Minister of Justice’s portfolio.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think the matter is a little more complicated, because when the questions for oral answer list was first distributed this morning, it indicated that the question had been lodged to the Minister of Police. I would draw your attention to the fact that the question talks about measures for the police to deal with an issue, which I would have thought would be entirely the portfolio responsibility of the Minister of Police.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice): A major part of the answer to this question is a piece of legislation that is immediately my responsibility before the House—that is, on the proceeds of crime. Also, the question traverses areas that cover probably four portfolios, but I am the senior Minister in the area.

Mr SPEAKER: No, there is no further assistance required. It is entirely up to the Government as to who answers, and it has indicated it will be answered in that way. That has been the case for over 50 years.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): If you look at the last year’s Budget, you will see it is clearly delineated there that it signed up money towards drug units run by the police. There has been some controversy in this House as to whether the Government was taking sufficient steps, because the police asked for more drug units, and they received fewer than they had asked for. Therefore, the responsibility clearly lies within the Minister of Police’s ambit, and although you may say that, it is drawing a long bow for the Minister of Justice to claim that it belongs there, when the budgetary provisions for 2004 clearly have it with the Minister of Police.

Mr SPEAKER: No, the Government is entitled to list the Minister concerned.

SIMON POWER (Senior Whip—National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am just looking for some consistency on a matter unrelated to the substantive issue raised. When Mr Alexander was on his feet raising his original point of order, he was interjected on by a member of the Labour back bench. I did not see whom it was. All we on the Opposition side of the House are asking for is a consistency in ruling on those interjections made at about the time the questions are asked, in the gap, and then when they are answered.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I did notice that it was actually Mr Prebble, but I am sure that he has not been a member of the Labour Party for some time.

Mr SPEAKER: In fact, I know that it was Mr Prebble, but I decided, because of the fact that he is a long-serving member, that I would ignore it. As Speaker, I am entitled to do so occasionally. I wish there were not these pointless points of order, which are pretty irrelevant.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As I have been called into this matter, I do apologise. I might say that it is easily solvable by the member. He supports the Government. All he has to do is to say: “If you don’t refer my question to the Minister, we won’t support you any more.”

Mr SPEAKER: As usual, I do not think I need to comment.

Rodney Hide: Come on, Marc!

Mr SPEAKER: I tell Mr Hide that he has just stepped over the boundary. [Interruption] The member will please leave the Chamber, or he will be named.

Rodney Hide withdrew from the Chamber.

MARC ALEXANDER (United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Without belabouring the point, I now seek your guidance as to why, when a question is directed to a particular Minister and is clearly in his or her area of responsibility, it can somehow, at the Government’s whim, be redirected to another Minister simply because we may actually end up with a better answer.

Mr SPEAKER: As long as I have been in this House, the Government has been able to decide who answers a particular question. If Mr Alexander does not wish to ask his question, he does not have to. It can automatically be withdrawn and resubmitted another day. At this point I ask Mr Alexander to ask his question.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With regard to applying the rules in a consistent way, Mr Hide made a comment at a point when the question had not begun. If you look at the Hansard, I think you will see it will reveal that. More important, Mr Hide is a new leader, struggling to make a name for himself, and I think you should give him some leniency until he learns the ropes. There is more than one leader of that sort in this House.

Mr SPEAKER: I can assure the member that I had given Mr Hide a very, very long piece of rope before I stepped in.

Methamphetamine—Crystal Rock

3. MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) to the Minister of Justice: Is the Government planning additional measures to help the police combat the distribution of the new and more potent form of methamphetamine known as “crystal rock” by organised crime; if so, what are those measures?

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice): Yes, a range of measures has already been taken in response to methamphetamine, to counter the danger it poses. They include legislation to increase the penalties for trafficking in methamphetamine, and strengthening the powers of the police and the Customs Service to deal with it. There has also been a huge boost in funding to crack down on the importation and manufacture of the drug. Other legislation in the pipeline includes a proceeds of crime bill to seize the assets of organised crime gangs and a misuse of drugs bill to prevent the importation of precursors. On the question of crystal rock, the police and the Institute of Environmental Science and Research advise me that they do not regard crystal rock as chemically different from, or more dangerous than, P or other forms of crystal methamphetamine like ice, which is already on the market.

Marc Alexander: Is the Minister concerned about reports that gangs in some areas now have free rein, because the police simply do not have the resources to monitor them—a fact highlighted only yesterday by the caravan park in Māngere that operated as a drug supermarket with impunity for years; if so, does he agree that plans to strip gangs of their assets will be nothing but words on paper if the police are not given substantial resources now?

Hon PHIL GOFF: No, I do not agree with the member. The police have been given substantial resources. If the member takes his mind back to last year’s Budget, he will find that $39 million was put into the police, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, and the Customs Service to crack down on this awful drug. I also tell the member that the National Interception Centre, which undertakes electronic intelligence aimed at organised crime and gang involvement in the drug trade, has seen its staff increase from 13 to 31. That is a two-thirds increase in the number of staff aimed at cracking down on organised crime. The member simply cannot say that nothing is being done and that resources have not been put in. Patently, they have been.

Tim Barnett: What impact has the significant increase in Government funding had on cracking down on the trade in methamphetamine?

Hon PHIL GOFF: It has had a huge impact, and across the three departments I have talked about. First, the police clan-lab teams that have been established have detected and closed down literally hundreds of those laboratories, and there is some evidence now that manufacturing in New Zealand is in decline. Secondly, the Customs Service has intercepted and seized record levels of methamphetamine. Thirdly, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, which does the scientific analysis, has now cleared up the backlog of its cases and is undertaking that analysis in real time. That is progress.

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If one listens carefully to the exact wording of that Minister’s last two answers, one can only conclude that he is reading directly from the Minister of Police’s portfolios. Everything he has been espousing is police policy and initiatives. It just suggests once again that either this man is rehearsing for the new appointments about to take place or the Government is slipping the defunct Minister out of the limelight.

Mr SPEAKER: That was not a point of order. In fact, the Minister spent quite a lot of his answer talking about the Customs Service and other portfolios.

Ron Mark: Two out of ten.

Mr SPEAKER: My goodness, the member is lucky. If I were to be strictly consistent, he would be leaving the Chamber. I just happen to be feeling very generous today.

Gerry Brownlee: Has he expressed any concerns to the Minister of Police that those distributing crystal rock and other drugs could go completely undetected provided they do not break the Road Code, now that the priority of the police is traffic enforcement; if not, what is it about the leadership of the Minister of Police that gives him confidence that he can lead the police to defeat organised crime in this country?

Hon PHIL GOFF: Contrary to the assertion that the member has just made is a quote from the assistant commissioner for crime reduction and public safety, Peter Marshall. He said, in response to that sort of attack on where their priorities were, that they have a holistic and balanced approach to reducing crime. That includes violence, drugs, and road safety—right across the board. That is what the public would expect.

Nandor Tanczos: Does the Minister have any real evidence that so-called crystal rock is becoming widespread, compared with the current influx of cocaine, for example, and does he not agree that Government policy should be based on something more substantial than rumours in a police newsletter?

Hon PHIL GOFF: I can assure the member that our policy is not based on rumours in a police newsletter. I can also tell the member—and the information is available to him if he wishes to look at it—that the vast growth in drugs in this country has actually been in the methamphetamine area, not the cocaine area or the marijuana area.

Marc Alexander: Will the Minister support measures contained in my member’s bill that would reverse the onus of proof for gang members, such that if the Crown can show that a gang member has been involved in serious criminal activity, his or her assets will be presumed to be of criminal origins and therefore forfeited unless the person can prove otherwise; if not, will the Minister replace the teeth I am suggesting with his rubber dentures?

Hon PHIL GOFF: The last comment by the member is absurd. No, I will not support his bill. His bill is based on the Western Australian model, which has proven less effective than the civil forfeiture bill, based on measures used in New South Wales, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, that I have foreshadowed and will be introducing this year. That civil forfeiture bill will make a huge difference in seizing the assets of organised crime and criminal gangs, and, for that matter, white-collar crime.

Ron Mark: When the Government failed to approve the initial requests made by the police for extra meth-lab teams, for extra staffing for drug investigations, and for extra staffing for Intel, all of which can be tabled, first, did the United Future party intervene and threaten to withdraw confidence from the Government if it failed to meet those requests immediately, and, second, can the Minister give the House an assurance right now that no detectives engaged in anti-drug operations have been pulled from their duties to do road traffic policing duties during the tenure of this Government?

Hon PHIL GOFF: In a moment I will seek the leave of the House to table exactly what went into dealing with organised crime and drugs in the last Budget, because the answer is too long to talk about in the House. But I will touch on a couple of points. The Budget provided for a third 12-person police clan-lab team, four chemical intelligence analysts, another $17 million for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd, and a third 6-person surveillance team, plus additional technical support. All of those things are addressing that problem.

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the interests of saving time, I say that I asked the Minister about what the police asked for—not what the Government delivered, but what the police asked for. Did United Future threaten to pull confidence?

Mr SPEAKER: The Minister had just about finished his answer. I hope he gets there very promptly.

Hon PHIL GOFF: I have just told the member what the police asked for and what they have been given. Every department and every ministry that I am responsible for always asks for everything it would ideally like. In the real world, they do not get everything, but in this case the police, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, and the Customs Service were treated very well. They were given the power to crack down on drug trafficking and organised crime, and the member knows it.

Gerry Brownlee: Can the Minister tell the House how many hours the police have spent on traffic enforcement, compared with the number of hours they have spent on trying to defeat organised crime?

Hon PHIL GOFF: I imagine that the hours that are spent relate to the volume of crime. The volume of crime that kills 400 people a year through drunken driving, etc., is obviously higher than the volume of crime that results in people dying from drugs. But I can tell the member that the police are giving every priority to methamphetamine, which the police, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, the Customs Service, and the Ministry of Justice all regard as a top priority.

111 System—Home Invasion

4. STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) to the Minister of Police: Was he denying any of the facts when replying to my question about the Bentley case, “Why … would any frightened family … trust a police force that cold-bloodedly lies to them about when help may arrive and is instructed to stop them from getting their neighbours to help, when the Minister of Police endorses that conduct and calls it a textbook response?”, when he responded “I do not accept that the police are liars.”, and if the police were not lying, what were they doing?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police): I do not accept that the police are cold-blooded liars.

Stephen Franks: Does the Minister deny that Maggie Bentley was told that the police had surrounded the property when, in fact, no police were there for another 40 minutes and the officer in charge later admitted that it would have taken them 2 hours to get the squad in place around the property, and that Maggie Bentley was told—

Mr SPEAKER: The member will please come to the question. He has had too long.

Stephen Franks: Those are the facts behind the question.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, but the member cannot go on forever. He will please come to the question.

Stephen Franks: Does the Minister deny that Maggie Bentley was told that her neighbours had been called when, in fact, there was never any intention to do so; if so, what does he call that conduct by the police?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: The police freely acknowledge that mistakes were made. That is part of the inquiry into, and review of, 111 calls.

Gerry Brownlee: Have the police made any changes to their operational procedures—I think that is the phrase the Minister used yesterday—as a result of the recent breakdowns in the 111 service?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Yes, the commissioner has reminded staff that when they are on duty they are all available to attend priority one calls—every one of them, whether they are doing traffic work or any other kind of work.

Gerry Brownlee: So they haven’t been?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: He has reminded them of that.

Marc Alexander: How can the Minister expect New Zealanders to have confidence in his leadership of the police when the police spend a large proportion of their resources on giving out speeding tickets and seemingly cannot reliably respond to 111 calls, or is his grand plan now to contract out police surveillance operations to the posties, Jim’s Mowing, or Hire A Hubby?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: None of those.

Stephen Franks: What exactly does Labour’s police textbook say about the police telling the public things the operator simply does not know—

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If one is going to ask a question with comments like that, there must be some relation to reality; there is no such thing as Labour’s police textbook.

Mr SPEAKER: I wonder whether the member could come to the question without adding a little bit extra.

Stephen Franks: What exactly is the policy that was endorsed as “textbook”, and what does it say about the police telling callers things that, at best, the operator does not know and at worst are deliberate falsehoods, and how will people ever trust a 111 service if the police are told it is “textbook” to mislead the public?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: I am advised that the communicator handling the call believed that assistance was on the way. Clearly, that was incorrect. An honest and tragic error was made. It all forms a part of the review so that police can get it better.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Can the Minister confirm that the “textbook” reference was to the fact that neighbours were advised not to intervene in an armed offenders incident, and that remains police advice in these circumstances?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Yes, absolutely.

Stephen Franks: What is the Minister’s answer to the two-thirds of farmers surveyed who say they no longer trust the 111 service and are turning to self-help, when the police officer who eventually turns up may be instructed to arrest them for threatening the criminals, and is more likely to do that than to ever catch the criminals in the hours after the offence?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: This is all part of the review.

Tertiary Students—Financial Support

5. LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) to the Minister of Education: What steps has the Government taken to increase the financial support available to tertiary students?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education): We have taken numerous steps, including ensuring students pay no interest on student loans while studying, fairer student loan repayment policies, and more targeted financial assistance to those on low incomes through Step Up Scholarships, TeachNZ, and other scholarships. In Budget 2004, eligibility for student allowances was increased substantially.

Lynne Pillay: How many students are likely to benefit from the increased allowance eligibility?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: We estimate that as a result of the $110 million investment in student support announced in the 2004 Budget, over 36,000 students will benefit from the increased eligibility. This will go a long way towards easing the financial burden that students face, and decreasing the growth in student loan debt.

Bernie Ogilvy: Is it true that the reason the Government is removing the independent circumstances allowance is that it believes the allowance breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act by discriminating against students who do not work to support themselves, and what kind of absurdity or excuse is that?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It is my understanding that advice from Crown Law was that employment history is not a valid reason for discriminating in those cases.

Nandor Tanczos: Is the Minister aware that a 24-year-old student living in Auckland, who moved out of home years ago and whose combined parental income is $52,000, can get an allowance of only $88 per week, including the accommodation benefit, and how does he expect that person to survive when that will not even pay the rent?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Like the vast majority of other students in similar circumstances, through a mixture of part-time employment and student loans.

Bernie Ogilvy: What does he say to the thousands of students this year who have busted their guts working for 96 weeks while studying and living away from home, but who now must go begging to their parents for the money to live, and how are the changes in the independent circumstances allowances fair to them?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: As the member is aware, all those students are eligible to that level of income through the loans scheme. The member does know that.

National Certificate of Educational Achievement—Scholarship Distinction Awards

6. Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Associate Minister of Education: What criteria did Cabinet use to retrospectively determine eligibility for scholarship distinction certificates?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister of Education): The establishment of the new distinction certificate for 2004 was based on achievement in the excellence category of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 3, for those subjects in which the achievement pattern of New Zealand Scholarship was significantly lower than expected from the ability of the level 3 cohort.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister understand that it may be a mystery to students, who wonder how Cabinet decided that out of 14,762 level 3 English students—an exam completely separate and different from scholarship—nine were worthy of Cabinet’s new qualification; and when will he table all the papers that set out the criteria behind these political decisions?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: The questioner is in error. Cabinet made no such decision. Cabinet made a decision based on the unacceptable level of variance that had occurred in some areas of the scholarship exam. In terms of the second part of the question, I am aware that the Official Information Act request has already been submitted by the questioner, and he will receive that information in due course.

Helen Duncan: How many monetary awards are expected as a result of the 2004 scholarship exams?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: In the various categories—Top Overall Scholar, where there are two; New Zealand Scholar Award; Scholarship Award; Top Subject Scholar; School Award; the new Level 3 Distinction Award—there are expected to be about 524 monetary awards.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Why did the New Zealand Qualifications Authority turn down the request of the Secondary Principals Association to be on the committee supervising the scholarship examinations, and is this evidence of an unjustified belief by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority that it knows better than those at the grass roots?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I do not believe that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority position is as the member articulates. But I am advised that there was no clear expression of opinion against the New Zealand Scholarship exam from the teaching profession last year. Certainly, an examination of the minute that was tabled yesterday confirms that.

Bernie Ogilvy: Given that the Minister said yesterday that the outcomes of the scholarship exams were delivered by due process, and that they will stand, could the so-called internationally reputable NCEA scholarship exams create such controversy this year?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I think it would have been totally unacceptable for the results of the exam to be manipulated, or, indeed, to be reset or re-marked, or for standards to be changed. I have no doubt that the integrity of the exam will stand up, now and in the future.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister understand why it is much more important that students know the criteria for his distinction certificate than that I get the Official Information Act request, because they have to make a decision by Monday about whether to resubmit their papers for reassessment; and how can they make that decision if, first, they do not know whether they have received a distinction certificate—because no student has been told—and, secondly, they have no idea what criteria Cabinet actually used for giving them out?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I would encourage any students who are unhappy with the outcome of their scholarship exam to follow the normal resubmission and re-examination process.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Does he believe that in the recent scholarship examinations the New Zealand Qualifications Authority achieved its vision statement of ensuring world-class qualifications for all; if, as it would appear, it has fallen far short of this, why has its chief executive officer not been asked to resign?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: No, I do not believe that that vision statement was achieved, but I think that the questioner would also acknowledge that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority is only one of the many parties involved in the setting of that examination.

Hon Bill English: Given 2 weeks of very adverse publicity about the scholarship exams, will the Minister give an undertaking to the House today that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority will not charge the $30 reassessment fee to those students who resubmit their papers to be assessed again properly?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I will consider that matter, but I would certainly not give that undertaking without taking further advice and looking at the wider implications.

Hon Richard Prebble: Will the Minister concede that the introduction of the NCEA was done with strong cross-party support in this House, and that, indeed, only one party, the ACT party, has consistently opposed the NCEA as a dumbing-down of standards; if so, would he go even further and say to questioners that the fact Cabinet is now deciding who gets the scholarships was absolutely predictable?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I am happy to answer some of those questions. I am happy to confirm that the NCEA was introduced with broad, cross-party support. I certainly do not subscribe to the member’s suggestion that there is any dumbing-down involved. In fact, the difficulty of this scholarship exam demonstrates quite the contrary.

Hon Bill English: Is the Minister aware that Auckland University gives significant weight to the scholarship results “for the purposes of ranking and selection into limited-entry programmes”, which include law; and what does he say to students who have missed out on selection to limited-entry programmes because of the chaos in the scholarship results, now that they know that even members of Cabinet thought the results were so wrong that they had to fix them?

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I seek an assurance from the member that he is referring to this year’s policy and not to last year’s policy? I think he is quoting from something 12 months out of date.

Mr SPEAKER: No, the member cannot seek that assurance, at all. The question was properly asked, and now will be answered.

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I am aware that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has already had extensive discussions with universities about the difficulties it is facing with regard to the scholarship exams. I have no evidence that the statement in relation to restricted entry has any substance.

Hon Bill English: I seek leave to table the Auckland University policy on the New Zealand Scholarship—which the Minister says has no substance. It sets out exactly how that university weights the scholarship results for the purpose of ranking or selecting students for limited-entry courses.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek an assurance about the date on that policy document, because our information is that it does not apply to this year’s entry—that it applied to last year’s.

Mr SPEAKER: The member can ask the date of the statement. Could the member give the date of the statement, and then I will take the leave.

Hon Bill English: Yes—today.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am going to ask you please to take the Hansard record of the exchanges over this question, have a good look at it, and perhaps make some recommendations, as a result, to the Standing Orders Committee. One of the questions that Mr Benson-Pope was asked brought the answer that he was not going to answer the question because an Official Information Act request had already been put in, and the person asking the question in the House today would receive that information in due course. We all know how the Official Information Act works. We know that it is not unreasonable for people to request a whole pile of Cabinet papers, and we know that they do come in due course. But the substance of the question asked here was whether the Minister knew how criteria would be applied. Clearly, he does not, and he does not want to tell the House that, so he hides behind that Official Information Act request. That should not be allowed when a Minister is answering, particularly as this matter is quite clearly one of public interest, and it is in the public good to know exactly what Cabinet is up to.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, the member can make a submission to the Standing Orders Committee, and I encourage him to do so. The Speaker is not concerned with Official Information Act requests. It is up to Ministers how they reply. This is not my role at the present time.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We understand that leave was just sought to table a document, and the member has declined to make it available until he has removed some information from it. I think it would be appropriate that the document be tabled as it was presented.

Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. It is up to the member what he decides to do.

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member has just made a comment that is absolutely wrong. I take offence at it, and I ask that he withdraw it. The messenger can actually corroborate what I did tell him about tabling of the document.

Mr SPEAKER: When offence is taken—and the member has taken offence—I want the Minister to withdraw.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I withdraw. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given that the member claimed that the document was dated today, I would invite him to table the document immediately.

Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Are you going to continue to allow points of order from that member that are designed to make me look like I am behaving in a dishonest manner? Actually, I will explain to the House what I said to the gentleman here. This is a web page. It actually does not have the link on it, because it was printed out without the link on the top. I said to the messenger that I will table the document when the link is on it, so that everyone knows it is genuine.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member has just made a very interesting admission—that it is the web page that is tabled today, not the policy statement.

Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. As far as I am concerned, a request was made—[Interruption] As far as I am concerned, when the member insists that his word be accepted, it has to be accepted, and it has been by me.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Labour Market—Work and Income Programmes for Seasonal Workers

7. DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) to the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment: What programmes are being run by Work and Income to meet seasonal labour demand?

Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment): The Government has a two-tier approach, firstly, working with seasonal industry to develop and maintain a long-term workforce; secondly, in the short-term assisting through Work and Income to ensure that all available and suitable New Zealanders on the unemployment benefit are made available for work, so it is Kiwis for jobs first. Work and Income, with the Department of Labour and the Immigration Service, are working to assist, where there is insufficient labour supply, with visa changes for visitors to be made quickly, and the Inland Revenue Department is ensuring—

Mr SPEAKER: That answer is too long. That is sufficient.

David Parker: What impact are those programmes having on seasonal labour demand?

Hon RICK BARKER: As each region is different, the short-term plan has been tailored to their requirements. In Alexandra we have seasonal solutions in the form of a one-stop shop, in Hawke’s Bay a web-based employment-matching programme that has had a surprising number of hits—2.3 million so far—with 1,932 job applications being received, and more surprisingly a high proportion of these—about 90 percent—are from Kiwis. Additionally Work and Income has written to superannuitants—

Mr SPEAKER: I just want to say for the second time that the Minister’s answer is too long. I presume he wants question time to finish. If he does not, well, then I am happy to let him go for an hour if he wants to.

Sue Bradford: Can the Minister assure the House that under the Jobs Jolt initiative relating to the work testing of 55 to 59-year-olds, this age group will not be compelled unreasonably to work in orchards, vineyards, and fields, as a way of getting them off the benefit?

Hon RICK BARKER: The work test will be applied fairly, according to the rules, for every group.

Prime Minister—English Language

8. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: What impact, if any, does the understanding of the English language have on the way in which she administers her Government?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister), on behalf of the Prime Minister: I believe that the Prime Minister has a reasonable understanding of the English language, sufficient at least to meet the needs of administering the Government.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If that is the case, does she understand the English language test, which despite its failure by her administration to be administered, now has 300,000 people in this country who cannot speak English, and how on earth did that happen?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I am not sure whether that information or statistic includes those aged under 2, the great majority of whom do not speak any language, but we have had a number of immigrants from countries whose native language is not English. But of course there are a number of people I know of, not always that far from here, who claim to be native English speakers who I would not regard as functionally literate.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is it that we now have a $1.2 million language line interpretation service fitted into parliamentary offices, if the Prime Minister and her colleagues had been doing their job in respect of the English language test, which despite that test now sees 300,000 people in this country who cannot speak English—how did that happen?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: As one of my colleagues has recently pointed out, sadly many people are functionally illiterate in English even though they are born and bred New Zealanders. That is the result of some failure over a long period of time. We have people whose native language is not English and who may pass a modest English language test, but still find it useful in dealing with complex matters to use a language line. For example, the member recently claimed that the Government had changed the rules on superannuation to move away from consumer price indexation. In fact, section 15(2) of the New Zealand Superannuation Act provides for consumer price indexation.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That last answer was totally irrelevant, for two reasons. Firstly, it did not address the question, and, secondly, it was demonstrably wrong when it comes to superannuation policy. That is how they fell below 65 percent of the net average wage. His colleague Mr Barker admitted that twice in the House last year—once orally and once in writing.

Mr SPEAKER: The member has made his point, but it is not a point of order.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is it that all these people coming into this country are now demanding all sorts of new language services, even to the extent that we have this service online in Parliament, when in fact they should follow the acronym of an old Chinese gentleman who said that the policy the Government should be following is “FIFO—Fit in, or fly off.”?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Unlike the member, the Government encourages and values diversity in New Zealand’s population. We know the member does not, but I do not think that is a view shared by the great majority of New Zealanders.

Primary Health Organisations—Closures

9. Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) to the Minister of Health: Have there been any recent announcements of primary health organisations collapsing and public money being squandered; if so, where?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): Since the commencement of primary health organisations in 2002 two primary health organisations have ceased operation. In 2003 Counties Manukau District Health Board ended its contract with Middlemore Primary Health Organisation. All outstanding funds were returned to the district health board. On 20 January this year the primary health organisation contract between Te Kupenga a Kahu Trust and Lakes District Health Board was terminated following notification that the primary health organisation was insolvent. I am advised by the chief executive officer of the district health board that there have never been any accusations of squandering public money. There is a debt to the district health board of $102,000. The debt is against the trust. The trust has been advised by the district health board lawyers that it retains the right to recover the money from the trust, including exercising any remedies that may be available to it, whether pursuant to the primary health organisation agreement or otherwise in law.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Has the Minister taken any action to improve accountability for primary health organisation funding, given that her system allowed Te Kupenga a Kahu Trust to siphon $102,000 into administration that was dedicated for improving access to health services; if not, why not?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Yes, the Ministry of Health is watching very carefully the use of money in primary health organisations. I have to say that it is a much better system than the old independent practice association system, whereby some independent practice associations were given money by the Government. One independent practice association in particular received over $20 million of Government money that was unable to be brought back to the Government or spent by the Government, because there was no contractual obligation for it to be returned to the Government—the independent practice association has it to this day.

Steve Chadwick: Have any patients been affected by the closure of that primary health organisation?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I am advised by the chief executive officer of the district health board that the primary health organisation was made up of three providers, two of which were general practitioner providers. The largest practice now has an arrangement with the Rotorua primary health organisation, the second practice has been given a section 88 notice, and the third had no general practitioner service, at all. No patients have been affected, and the people in the community continue to get their general practitioner service.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Did the Minister or the member for Rotorua influence the establishment of Te Kupenga a Kahu Trust primary health organisation to ensure its approval in circumstances when the Lakes District Health Board had reservations about its formation?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I had no influence in the establishment of a primary health organisation in Rotorua. I cannot speak for the member—she can speak for herself. However, I do know that the district health board took responsibility for the establishment of that primary health organisation.

Hon Bill English: Who pushed it?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is about the comment made by Bill English, who said: “You pushed them.” That is totally incorrect. I ask him to withdraw and apologise.

Mr SPEAKER: Did the member make that comment? The member said that he did not. I have to accept his word.

Hon ANNETTE KING: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member is not telling the truth. He did say that.

Mr SPEAKER: That is out of order and the member knows it. Because the member is the Minister answering a question, she will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon ANNETTE KING: I withdraw and apologise. I did not influence that primary health organisation’s establishment in any way, at all. In fact, until it was established I had no knowledge of it. Any member of this House who accuses me of that is totally incorrect. The district health board made the decision on which primary health organisation would be established in its area, as every district health board does.

Steve Chadwick: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I will clarify, as I was named—

Mr SPEAKER: No, the member can seek leave to make a personal explanation in relation to this matter.

Steve Chadwick: I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection?

Gerry Brownlee: Can you leave it until after question time?

Mr SPEAKER: It can be after question time. There is objection.

Heather Roy: Can the Minister deny that under her primary health organisations, doctors’ visits for 18 to 65-year-olds enrolled in interim primary health organisations cost, on average, over $55, a huge increase since she became the Minister; if not, what is the average charge for that group of patients?

Hon ANNETTE KING: To date the Government has not put in any additional funding for those people aged between 18 and 64, so doctors may charge whatever they like, but there are those in that age group who have community services cards, and they are entitled to cheaper fees. However, good news is on the way. This Government intends to fund all New Zealanders in order that they can access more affordable primary health care, and I know that that is supported by most New Zealanders.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Why does HealthPAC fund services before they have been delivered, and even before they have been defined; and is that not a case of lack of accountability?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Is it not interesting that in this House, HealthPAC has been accused of not funding services soon enough. If the member has a particular issue he wishes to raise, he should write it down and we will look at it. However, I recall a question in this House asking why HealthPAC was so slow. It does a very good job. It provides funding to thousands of providers around New Zealand. If the member has a particular case, he should tell us what it is.

Dr Paul Hutchison: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked a very specific question that I believe the Minister did not answer.

Mr SPEAKER: No, the Minister addressed the question. Did Steve Chadwick have a point of order at this stage? She may ask for leave again.

Steve Chadwick: I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER: It is in relation to the comment earlier in a supplementary question. Is there any objection?

Gerry Brownlee: Yes, it should be at the end of question time.

Mr SPEAKER: This is the end of this question. There is objection.

Dr Paul Hutchison: I seek leave to table two articles. One is an article from New Zealand Doctor that highlights the failure of the Government to manage the smaller primary health organisations.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that article. Is there any objection? There is.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Secondly, I seek leave to table a press release from the Lakes District Health Board that states, to paraphrase, that the Lakes District Health Board had always wanted a collaborative primary health organisation, but that Te Kupenga a Kahu Trust had an unswerving desire to put out on its own.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that press release. Is there any objection? There is.

Drugs—Border Seizures

10. DAVE HEREORA (Labour) to the Minister of Customs: What reports has he received about significant drug seizures at the border in 2004?

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Customs): Reports from the New Zealand Customs Service show that there were 53 significant drug seizures at the border last year, compared with 28 in 2003. That includes the seizure of over 17.5 kilos of crystal methamphetamine in 2004, up from 748 grams in 2003, and 1.8 million capsules of precursors for the manufacture of methamphetamine, more than double that of 2003. The estimated value of the illegal drugs seized by the Customs Service was a staggering $52 million, compared with $34 million the year before.

Dave Hereora: What action has the Government taken to ensure that the Customs Service has the resources to reduce illegal drug importation?

Hon RICK BARKER: In 2003-04 an extra $1.9 million was provided for the recruitment and training of additional specialist drug intelligence and investigation staff, specifically to help to identify and investigate syndicates trafficking drugs in New Zealand. In 2004-05, $5 million was invested in passenger inspection at our international airports, and to lift the boarding of arriving vessels to 100 percent inspection—essential activities for the detection of illegal goods crossing our border, particularly drugs.

Asbestos—Compensation Payments

11. SUE KEDGLEY (Green) to the Minister for ACC: Does she have concerns that former employees of James Hardie Industries’ south Auckland asbestos factory, who are now dying of asbestos-related diseases, are entitled to a $68.77 a week “independence allowance” as compensation, while Australian victims have negotiated lump-sum payouts from James Hardie Industries that average over $272,000; if so, what does she intend to do to rectify this inequity?

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC): I want to make two points in answer to this question. Firstly, it is incorrect to represent that these claimants receive only $68.77 a week, because that is only the independence allowance. They may also be entitled to weekly compensation, home help, childcare, treatment costs, personal care, medical products, housing modifications, and a number of other supports. Their estate, should the claimant die, may be entitled to funeral grants, and their dependants to survivor grants. The second point is that former union employees of James Hardie Industries’ south Auckland asbestos factory do have an agreement with the company for lump-sum compensation for employees who were employed on 1 April 1974. I will seek to table this document at the end of this question.

Sue Kedgley: Will the Government be applying the same sort of moral pressure on James Hardie Industries as the Australian Government applied, which successfully brought James Hardie Industries to the negotiating table in Australia, to include New Zealand sufferers from asbestos in its compensation scheme; if not, why not?

Hon RUTH DYSON: As I outlined in the answer to the primary question, there is already an existing agreement for union members who were former employees of the factory in south Auckland if they were employed on 1 April 1974.

Hon Mark Gosche: Why has confusion arisen about lump-sum compensation?

Hon RUTH DYSON: Confusion has arisen because the former National Government removed lump-sum payments from the accident compensation scheme in 1992. Our Government reinstated those payments from 1 April 2002. A High Court case is pending to clarify whether entitlement to a lump-sum payment for people with asbestos-related diseases should stem from the period of their exposure to asbestos or from the day on which they first sought treatment.

Sue Kedgley: Why is the Minister not prepared to go in to bat for all asbestos sufferers, regardless of when they contracted the disease, and why is she allowing the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to engage in a mean-spirited legal battle to challenge the lump-sum compensation that was recently awarded to a dying asbestos sufferer?

Hon RUTH DYSON: In my view, it is appropriate for a Minister to support his or her department or corporation in applying the law in the way that it believes it is correctly interpreted. In this situation, I believe it is appropriate to let the High Court determine its interpretation on that confusing aspect of deemed date of injury.

Sue Kedgley: Does she really believe that $66 a week is enough to compensate—and I was referring to compensation, I tell the Minister—victims of a debilitating workplace disease that will kill them, or are she and ACC just following Treasury advice that they should avoid any compensation payouts to asbestos sufferers who contracted the illness before 2002 because it could set a precedent for other gradual process illnesses, which is a risk that is explicitly identified in the Government’s financial statements?

Hon RUTH DYSON: Given that we had a 10-year period during which no lump-sum compensation was available and, therefore, no levies were collected in order to pay for it, it is a responsible response from the Government to listen to the financial implications of any retrospectivity of the reintroduction of lump-sum compensation. That is exactly what we did. How else would we pay for it?

Sue Bradford: Is the Minister aware that if ACC does succeed in its appeal against those extremely ill people, the accident compensation scheme itself will no longer meet minimum standards required under ILO Convention 42, ratified by New Zealand as long ago as 1938; if so, is it no longer Labour Party policy to uphold internationally required standards for workers’ rights?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I do not agree with that interpretation of the application of ILO Convention 42. That convention says that we must ensure that gradual process illness and injury has a comparable level of compensation with other injuries. If there were no retrospectivity at all, which is the matter being determined, it would be exactly comparable.

I seek leave to table the document, the James Hardie agreement, which I referred to in the answer to the primary question.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Land—Public Access to Private Land

12. Hon DAVID CARTER (National) to the Associate Minister for Rural Affairs: When will legislation to enact the Government’s decision on public access to private land be introduced to the House?

Hon JIM SUTTON (Associate Minister for Rural Affairs): When it is ready.

Hon David Carter: Does the Minister stand by his press release dated 22 December last year, which stated: “The Government intends to introduce legislation by the middle of the year.”; if so, how does he reconcile that statement with the Prime Minister’s statement in the House on Tuesday, when she refused to confirm that the legislation would be introduced before the general election?

Hon JIM SUTTON: If the legislation is ready by the middle of the year, I will try to have it introduced by the middle of the year. The Prime Minister, unlike members opposite, does not make promises until she knows that she can keep them.

Jill Pettis: Could the Minister please advise why the Government is doing the work on providing walking access to land?

Hon JIM SUTTON: It is because access to the publicly owned assets of rivers, lakes, and beaches is part of a great New Zealand tradition, but the Queen’s Chain is fragmented and it is difficult to tell where it applies and where it does not. The work we are doing seeks to unify access rules in a way that makes access certain, practical, free, and enduring, with the least possible impact on landholders. Our proposed policy, where ownership remains in private hands and walking access is restricted to water margins, will fulfil that.

Dr Muriel Newman: What is the Minister’s response to rural women up and down the country who are saying that if this law is passed, the Labour Government will be putting their families’ lives at risk of rape, robbery, and home invasion, by giving gangs and other criminals the right to trespass legally on their property?

Hon JIM SUTTON: The 50 to 70 percent of New Zealand water margins where there is an existing legal right of public passage do not have that impact, and to suggest that filling in the gaps between those Queen’s Chains will have that effect is absurd scaremongering.

Larry Baldock: What is the Minister’s response to those who continually claim that the Government’s public access policy will seek to trample on private property rights, with provisions such as an unfettered right to roam?

Hon JIM SUTTON: My response is that they should read the newspapers occasionally, from which they would have learnt many months ago that the Government has rejected the policy of an unfettered right to roam.

Hon David Carter: Why did a spokesperson from his office tell Rural News in December last year that no work was continuing on the land access issue, and that none would be done in the near future, when, within days of that statement, the Minister released the Government’s plans?

Hon JIM SUTTON: Obviously, somebody misinterpreted someone from my office.

Question No. 9 to Minister—Personal Explanation

STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua): I wish to make a personal explanation under Standing Order 343 in relation to question 9. I take personal offence at the intimation I was personally involved in the establishment of Te Kupenga a Kahu Trust, a primary health organisation with the Lakes District Health Board. I have the utmost faith in the Lakes District Health Board and its ability to manage the process and establishment of any primary health organisation, including Te Kupenga a Kahu Trust.

Bills

Ngāti Awa Claims Settlement Bill

Second Reading

Hon MARK BURTON (Associate Minister in Charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations), on behalf of the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: I move, That the Ngāti Awa Claims Settlement Bill be now read a second time. This bill is an important milestone for Ngāti Awa and for the Crown. It addresses the longstanding grievances suffered by Ngāti Awa. The bill will enable both parties to move forward and strengthen their relationship as treaty partners. I encourage every member of the House to read carefully the preamble to this bill. It sets out the Crown acknowledgements and formal apology to Ngāti Awa for past dealings that breached the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. It acknowledges that the Crown breached the treaty and its principles by failing to ensure that the Ngāti Awa people were left with sufficient land for their present and future needs. It also acknowledges that the confiscation of Ngāti Awa tribal land had a devastating effect on the welfare, economy, and development of Ngāti Awa. Confiscation deprived the iwi of many wāhi tapu, of access to natural resources, and of opportunities for economic, social, and cultural development.

As well as a formal Crown apology to Ngāti Awa, this settlement provides for financial redress of $42.39 million, including the transfer of Crown-owned forest land in the Kāingaroa and Rotoehu forests, and a variety of cultural redress to recognise and protect the interests of the people of Ngāti Awa in sites of significance to them. That cultural redress will strengthen ties between Ngāti Awa and the Crown.

The Māori Affairs Committee has considered this bill and submitted its commentary on it to the House. The committee has recommended that the bill be passed with minor amendments of an editorial and technical nature. I thank the committee for its thorough consideration of the bill in general, and for its observations on the process of ratification by members of Ngāti Awa. Ratification of both the settlement offer and governance entity by members of the claimant community are crucial to the settlement process. The Crown has clear guidelines for reviewing ratification processes and their outcomes. Primarily, the Crown needs assurance that all eligible members of the claimant group have had a chance to participate and that a sufficient majority of the claimant group supports the proposals. A postal ballot is inevitably the preferred method to gauge that support. However, low voter turn-out can be a concern, especially when decisions of this magnitude are being made. In the case of Ngāti Awa, the committee stated that it was satisfied that a robust ratification process was run for both the settlement offer and the governance entity, and that they were supported by a high percentage of all those who voted.

Participation rates are a key consideration for the Crown. However, it would be unfair to deny claimants a settlement on the basis of voter turn-out alone. Short of compelling people to fill out their voting forms, the Crown and claimant groups do everything they can to ensure that all eligible members of the claimant community have a credible opportunity to participate. The Crown has worked, and will continue to work, closely with claimant groups to advise them on ways to maximise ratification participation. The Crown is confident that the majority of Ngāti Awa supports this settlement.

In recognition of the Waitangi Tribunal’s findings with regard to three ancillary claims, the Crown agreed to settle those claims alongside the main Ngāti Awa settlement. The provisions affecting the three ancillary claims were finalised as the bill was introduced. The committee agreed to the inclusion of those provisions in the bill to enable them to form part of the main Ngāti Awa settlement.

I note that the committee considered Te Runanga o Ngati Awa Bill at the same time as this bill. Te Runanga o Ngati Awa Bill was reported back on 1 December 2004 and passed its second reading in the House just yesterday. It enables Ngāti Awa to establish an appropriate entity to receive the settlement redress while retaining key features of their existing entity, including its statutory status. That bill now awaits the passing of this bill so that the rūnanga can take on its new responsibilities to the people of Ngāti Awa.

It has taken many years of challenging negotiations between Ngāti Awa and the Crown to reach this point. The Crown considers that the settlement is fair and just. The people of Ngāti Awa have ratified it, and both parties now look forward to a more positive future relationship.

In closing, I acknowledge the many people—officials, Ministers, and, of course, members of Ngāti Awa—who have worked hard to reach this settlement. I strongly urge members to progress this bill through the House without further delay.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): This settlement bill does address grievances that the people of Ngāti Awa have had with the Crown, and it raises interesting questions to consider: who is the Crown and who is not, and why has this group of New Zealanders had its grievance with the Crown dealt with in this way? The answers to those questions are not terribly complex, but answering them does allow us to see the treaty settlement process in a much more positive light than it is seen by some New Zealanders.

The point I make is that the Labour Government constantly talks about the partnership between the Crown and Māori. We do not accept the term “partnership”. It is rubbish, because when the treaty was signed, if it was ever to have any validity at all, it had to be that there was one form of governance in this country from that point on, and that had to be that all New Zealanders would stand as equals before the law. Anyone who comes to the Government—which is the representative of the Crown these days—to have a grievance sorted out, and who then negotiates to have that grievance dealt with does so because he or she has a right to be treated as an equal under the law. And at some point or over some period of time since 1840, people have not been treated in that way. So in settling a grievance like this, the Crown, which is all of us, Māori and non-Māori, simply says it recognises that a group of us was not properly dealt with according to the law, and there are grounds for redress. That is the basis on which the National Party has approached treaty settlements since we started the process back in the early 1990s.

We are happy that this bill is before us today. We do want to see the people of Ngāti Awa receive their settlement and get on with things, because in so doing we all benefit. But I cannot help but make a few comments with regard to the Minister’s blasé approach to the appallingly low number of people from that iwi who have ratified this settlement. In saying that 40 percent of the eligible iwi members voted for this deed of settlement and that of those only 78 percent—78 percent of the 40 percent—support it, one is saying, actually, that less than one-third of that iwi says that this bill deals with the iwi’s grievance. I do not feel at all comfortable about being able to say to New Zealanders that the process of settlement of these treaty claims is full and final, when two-thirds or more of an iwi will be able to say, for some generations, that it was not part of that. Those people will be able to say that a particular leadership, which, clearly, they did not support, committed them to it, and that Parliament imposed it upon them.

Although we will vote for this bill to progress to the Committee stage today, I hope that Ngāti Awa may take some time to give us confidence that that appallingly low vote is enough for us to support this bill through its third reading. It is a failing on the part of the Government and the Office of Treaty Settlements to accept such a low vote. I am sorry to be so strong on this point, but if this is the settlement of a long-held, deeply emotional grievance, what is so hard about getting a much bigger number of people to stick their hands up and say they want it? I do not think it should be too hard, at all. I would like to know whether the Office of Treaty Settlements, which I must say I find to be an office of Government run by people who are very, very light on life experience, let alone experience of the matters they are supposed to be dealing with—

Hon Paul Swain: What about the National Party?

GERRY BROWNLEE: The Labour Party is getting upset! After 5 years of being in Government, it has brought to Parliament the very first treaty settlement bill that it has put together totally by itself, and we are not allowed to expose that the ratification process for it is a sham. The Minister, Margaret Wilson, does not have her hand on the throttle of that department; it is being driven by someone else.

If Labour knows a compelling reason why this Parliament and the people of this country should accept that one-third of an iwi that has a grievance can say that what the Government is offering is okay and that it is full and final, with never another comeback, then it should tell us what that reason is. If I were part of the other two-thirds, I would be making my argument. There is silence—absolute silence. There is a look of stunned disbelief on the face of the Minister of Māori Affairs. The Minister who spoke on behalf of the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations today should not offer much more comment, because it was noted that he simply read the notes that the Office of Treaty Settlements had provided for him—and, as I have said, we do not think its credibility is all that good.

Although we do want to see claims progress—and we want to see them progressing at a much quicker rate than one every 5 years—in the future we will require in the ratification process that the buy-in from the settlors of any agreement be much greater than one-third of an iwi saying it is all right. Effectively, that calls into question the issue of “full and final” settlement. I hope that the people of Ngāti Awa who have heard our considerations today do accept the challenge to convince us that everything is OK. Maybe there is a good reason why two-thirds of the iwi who were eligible to vote for the deed of settlement decided not to. We will consider what those reasons might have been. Perhaps during the Committee stage we can test just what the failing has been.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs): E tika ake anō ki te mihi ake anō i a koutou i konei ki te tautoko i muri a te pire nei.

[It is apt indeed that I acknowledge those of you once again who are here to support this bill.]

I am privileged to stand here in support of this bill. I certainly enjoy the speeches delivered by National’s Māori spokesperson, because half of them are always cock-eyed. This bill is certainly about bringing to an end a long haul. That member only parroted and repeated what he said last night.

Gerry Brownlee: I am right!

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: He is right—in parts of his speech he is right—but the process has been transparent. The people driving it have lauded it through their rohe. They have put it in newspapers. They have been open about it. Nobody has complained about their being here today.

Gerry Brownlee: Two-thirds say it is not good.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: How many? Well, well, well. I remember that member’s party when the Tainui case was settled. What were the numbers then? They got 30 percent, and 70 percent of the 30 percent voted—fewer than in this case. The member was a Tory then and he is a Tory now. Let me remind him that people in glass houses should not throw stones. [Interruption] There is a member who was involved in that settlement and was very close to one of its great drivers in creating it.

Why do people pontificate about partnership not being real? The Treaty of Waitangi was the document that started the journey of this country. People like my colleague over there pahupahu—espouse at length about nationhood—but they do not believe in it. They would rather scratch the itch, especially up in Ōrewa, and make people believe that all Māoris need to be kept in the dungeons of doom and gloom. Let me tell the House that this bill is critical. [Interruption] No, not in this booming economy. I can tell the House that 95 percent of the people who belong to this hapū who can work are working at the moment. This Government made that possible. [Interruption] That is dead right. I know it is the truth, and the member knows it is the truth.

I am glad we agree about bringing this to an end, but let us not preach things that we do not want to practise. The member says that the treaty has no standing. He says that partnerships, in the purest form, are unreal. Certainly, partnership has to be about getting on with everybody. The Māoris, being as transparent as they are, have signalled it—the developers in the tribe, in the iwi—and that is why we are here today. Custom and ritual at times hold indigenous people back, but they are not static. Some people in the tangata whenua try to bog down progress by bringing things mai i a Toi, mai i te taima o Captain Cook.

[from Toi and the time of Captain Cook]

I will translate for my Māori spokesperson friend opposite: they try to take a snapshot of the time before Captain Cook arrived here, and try to make out that it is relevant in contemporary times. That is what that member is doing. He is saying that Māori should not move forward, that the treaty should not be recognised, and that partnerships towards nationhood should not be recognised.

Gerry Brownlee: I haven’t said that.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: That is not what Georgina te Heuheu told me, and I really believe it. The purpose of this claims settlement bill is to give effect to the deed in which the Crown and Ngāti Awa agreed to a final settlement. I trust them. I trust the Māoris and I trust the Crown in this deal, because that is true partnership. Saying that poor old Māori are getting something for nothing again is a lot of rot, and that member knows it. The notion that these people support out there—that Māori cannot do it, or should not do it, or should not get people registered to agree with them— is an abysmal performance in this House. [Interruption] I know that the member from Rangitikei understands progress, because he is starting to improve himself and impress people by wearing suits like Winston Peters’. There may be another thing going on there!

Talking about percentages and numbers, I heard the prattle over there from ACT, who are polling at 1.6 percent—a lot less support than Ngāti Awa have got here—and are allowed to sit in the House and abuse Māoris and accuse Māoris. They should not talk to me about percentages. These people have put a lot of effort into this. This bill needs to go through. The issue is that—[Interruption] That party has voted for the bill and I am really thankful for that. Good manners, forward thinking, and trying to emulate in this contemporary time the good faith with which those great people signed the treaty is something that this debate should be about—not all the other rot that I heard before.

I thank members for their support. Kia ora.

JIM PETERS (NZ First): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Ngā rangatira, ngā kaikawe o tēnei kaupapa mō Ngāti Awa, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, and greetings to you the chiefs and those who handled this matter for Ngāti Awa, greetings to you, greetings.]

On behalf of New Zealand First I stand to speak to the Ngāti Awa Claims Settlement Bill. On behalf of the only non-aligned political party in this House, I will address some matters raised in the second reading.

I tender the apologies of my colleague Pita Paraone, our Māori affairs spokesperson, who would have spoken in this debate, but, because of the inability of the Leader of the House and the Minister of Māori Affairs to show due consideration to those who considered this bill, is not able to be present at this time, and instead is away with the select committee looking at other matters. As I heard the Minister make that grand statement about partnership, the Treaty of Waitangi, and so on, I thought that it would have been more appropriate and more fitting if there had been some consideration for the members of the Māori Affairs Committee, who carefully went through the submissions, who made changes, and who will make further changes in the Committee of the whole House, so that they could be present today to state their minds on the matter.

This bill, as we see, is the culmination of what has been a long and arduous period of endeavour by the people of Ngāti Awa towards a satisfactory claims settlement. Therefore, it may seem churlish on the part of New Zealand First to signal at the very beginning that at the Committee stage we will propose two Supplementary Order Papers. The first is with regard to the landmark definition of hapū, and the second is to omit all present references in this bill to the undefined principles of the treaty.

The real matter before us is the culmination of a long endeavour. In 1999 the Waitangi Tribunal issued its report. Its principal findings, as are related in the preamble to the bill, were that the confiscation of Ngāti Awa’s lands was contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi, that there was no rebellion to justify confiscation—and that is a core matter here—and that the confiscation appeared to be beyond the authority of the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863. We know that the Government did not present evidence at the time, nor did it necessarily agree with the findings of the tribunal, but that was the core matter before the beginnings of this bill. We know that between 1996 and late 1998 the Crown and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa worked towards a negotiated settlement, and that in 1998 the Government made an offer. Ngāti Awa did not concur, and the Crown made a revised offer in 2000. That agreement was a joint deed statement. Finally, we come to the House and pick up a bill that records the acknowledgements and apologies given by the Crown to Ngāti Awa in a deed of settlement on 27 March 2003.

So we have before us a document that gives effect to the historical claims as agreed between the Crown and Ngāti Awa, and passes the governance responsibility of the assets of this settlement to that entity that the majority of the beneficiaries of Ngāti Awa have indicated support for. That last statement may seem to be in contrast to that raised by the deputy leader of the National Party, but there is some reason to believe that there has been increasing support by beneficiaries for this bill. So, along with the Ngāti Awa governance bill, which the House is looking at, this bill will lay the foundations, when it is finally passed, for the future development of Ngāti Awa, and New Zealand First would applaud that.

We note that the level of support was deemed sufficient by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa for it to proceed with the signing of the deed. We note that this is a timely and satisfactory settlement of claims before the Waitangi Tribunal, by way of either hearing or direct negotiation, that have taken over almost a decade of time. But we have serious concerns about what is a landmark departure from established and known practice. I am referring to clause 13, which covers the hapū of Ngāti Awa, and particularly to subparagraphs (xx) and (xxi), which refer to Ngāti Awa ki Tāmaki-makau-rau and Ngāti Awa ki Pōneke. We believe that the inclusion of these two entities as hapū for the purpose of this bill is outside the traditional concept of what establishes or creates a hapū.

In this House we know that the social structure of Māori is made up of whānau, or family; hapū, which are a number of families that have a common ancestor, who is normally a descendant of an iwi ancestor; and iwi, which is aggregated hapū with a common ancestor. That is common understanding in the wider society. But in this bill we have a departure—we have a landmark—and that is that these two hapū, we are advised, descend from the other hapū and from iwi descendants of Ngāti Awa. Essentially, Parliament is being asked to include them in the bill to ensure that those who are living in Ākarana, and those who are living in Pōneke, or Wellington, are assured access to the benefits that this settlement will bring to Ngāti Awa.

During the course of the hearing, submissions on this very issue were made. I believe that they were made very cogently. I want quickly to go through what they say. One submitter said this: “These entities are not hapū, but have been created for political expedience and convenience. They don’t qualify. They do not have urupā. They do not have any place to stand in. Every member registered to these entities”—that is, No. (xx) and No. (xxi)—“has whakapapa links back to the official hapū within Ngāti Awa area, in the same way that other Ngāti Awa have residing anywhere in the world.” The conclusion, this submitter stated—and he is well known in this land—is that, as a result, these two entities have got another meaning and significance.

The question that one would ask is why this was regarded as a matter of expediency and convenience. Should the authority to create a new hapū be vested in Parliament, for the first time? This is indeed very, very strange. What of the other Ngāti Awa descendants living elsewhere in the world? Why about those living in Sydney, Brisbane, or Perth? Why should they be expected to connect with their hapū at home, while residents in Tāmaki and Pōneke have the convenience and the choice of connecting with either? This is indeed a very strange, landmark departure.

In New Zealand First we acknowledge the intent of Ngāti Awa to have a governance structure that ensures their people are easily able to access the benefits of their settlement with the Crown. But we believe that what is proposed in this bill, in clause 13, is not a matter for this House. We believe that for this House to legislate for the creation of hapū, as proposed, will pose a question long into the future, and subsequently people will be asked why Parliament legislated for this strange new entity.

So New Zealand First will seek to amend the bill by way of a Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee stage, in the belief that the creation of hapū, as proposed in this bill, is not the responsibility of this House, nor should it be. That should be the responsibility of those who sit elsewhere, in other places. When they have resolved the issue as to how they are able to maintain and govern in their structures, and ensure that the benefits of the settlement are conveyed to their people, they should be deciding that issue. It is not for this House suddenly, at this point in 2005, to decide for the first time to create something that has not been known in Māori traditional structure. The Associate Minister, who has departed, made great talk about traditions and the like; this issue is certainly a departure, which he should have thought about very, very carefully.

We will seek to further amend the bill by way of a Supplementary Order Paper, as we have stated, to omit all present references in this bill to the undefined principles of the treaty.

We commend the bill to the House. We say these words in sorrow because we would wish that Ngāti Awa, their beneficiaries, and their people have at this time the ability to realise what this settlement could do for their present and their future. But my having said that, the matters that I have raised are important. The creation of hapū in this bill is alien to Māori. It is alien to this land. And the references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, undefined as they are, need to be expunged. We wish Ngāti Awa well. With those reservations, we will support the bill proceeding to the Committee of the whole House, and hope that at that stage these matters can be defined.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green): Ngāti Awa ka nui te mihi ki a koutou. First I wish to echo the comments of Jim Peters when he refers to the poor timetabling of this bill. It is unfortunate that the Māori Affairs Committee is not in Wellington and members are unable to speak to this bill. [Interruption] As with members’ day yesterday where we saw the Te Runanga o Ngati Awa Bill—

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Labour senior whip just interrupted the speech of Mr Nandor Tanczos to suggest that the issue of the Māori Affairs Committee not being in Wellington today—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but I say to him that that is not a point of order. It is part of the debate, and that is what is happening now.

Gerry Brownlee: Your job is to keep order in the House to make sure the place does not disintegrate—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): This is not a point of order.

Gerry Brownlee: Well, here is my point of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well, it had better be a point of order.

Gerry Brownlee: I would ask you to require the Labour senior whip to stand up and apologise to Mr Tanczos for interrupting his speech, particularly with a statement that was patently untrue.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I just say to the honourable member that I was distracted, because what was actually happening was that there was an interjection between two members who do not have the floor, one on my right and one on my left. I say to members that interjections are not permitted at all when they are directed at a member who does not have the floor. In this case, neither member did.

NANDOR TANCZOS: I thank Mr Brownlee for that clarification. Yesterday, we saw a bill regarding the rūnanga of Ngāti Awa being put through in members’ day as a member’s bill, when it should have been a Government bill, and it shows the lack of respect on behalf of the Crown with regard to this issue. We in the Greens think that that is unfortunate.

We do support the bill. This settlement arises out of confiscations of land made by the Crown in order to punish Ngāti Awa for alleged rebellions in the 1860s. Those alleged rebellions arose out of the participation of some Ngāti Awa hapū in the Tairāwhiti force that was intending to go to the Waikato to assist the iwi there, as well as out of the retribution for the killing of four people in 1865.

When the Crown executed arrest warrants in response to those killings, the Crown’s force destroyed considerable property and laid waste to many pā within the rōhe of Ngāti Awa, causing enormous damage to the hapū. Over 13 men were arrested under those warrants. All of them were imprisoned, and two of them were executed. For generations Ngāti Awa has carried the stigma of tangata hara as a result.

When the Waitangi Tribunal heard the case in the late 1990s, the tribunal was clearly of the view that the confiscation of the lands of Ngāti Awa was contrary to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, that there was no rebellion to justify the confiscations, and that the confiscations as effected were outside the law.

About 245,000 acres of land were confiscated in 1866, and eventually around 77,000 acres were returned. But that land was returned to individuals, contrary to tikanga Māori and, inevitably, those lands became susceptible to partition, fragmentation, and alienation, because they were held in individual title and not by the collective from whom the lands were stolen. It is against that background of abuse that the settlement has occurred.

In the select committee a number of concerns were raised. For example—and this has been referred to by previous speakers—the rate of participation for the ratification process was low in the settlement. But of course that is an issue for all settlements, and the Hon Parekura Horomia referred to that, as well. In our opinion, the low participation rate arises directly out of the process that the Office of Treaty Settlements requires.

What is desperately needed in this whole issue is a thorough review of the settlement process from the viewpoint of the claimants. It is the claimants who need to be given the opportunity to give direct advice to the Office of Treaty Settlements as to what it is they need from the office, to ensure they get the most appropriate processes to meet the needs of the hapū involved. The Office of Treaty Settlements needs to give effect to that advice, without excuse. It is a simple enough request, which that office has steadfastly refused to accept.

The Greens continue to be highly critical of a settlement process where the iwi, who are the aggrieved party, have no authority, control, or decision-making powers over the process. We understand that the necessary boundaries in a negotiation should be jointly negotiated if they are to be fair, but in the settlement process that is simply not what happens. The Government sets its own policy and positions, remains inflexible, and offers iwi and hapū a “take it or leave it” approach. That is not fair negotiation. Justice cannot be properly achieved when the process is so fundamentally unjust.

The Greens acknowledge that this settlement is the best that Ngāti Awa could have secured under the current settlement policy, and we congratulate Ngāti Awa on pursuing some restitution—though it is through that demanding and unjust process. Despite our serious misgivings about the underlying nature of the settlement process, and the long and difficult path involved in it, we understand that the people of Ngāti Awa are confident that for them this settlement provides some measure of rangatiratanga. Therefore, we support this bill and we pay our respects to Ngāti Awa: tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

JILL PETTIS (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I will speak briefly to it. During the debate Mr Peters from New Zealand First and Mr Tanczos from the Greens talked about the fact that the Māori Affairs Committee was meeting in Kawerau today, which was disruptive to their respective party members’ ability to be here in Parliament. I want to tell members that on 14 December 2004 the Business Committee, by unanimous agreement of its members with regard to item No. 5 on the agenda, gave permission for Māori Affairs Committee members to meet in Kawerau, according to Standing Order 193(a). The minutes were circulated on Wednesday, 15 December 2004, and no objection has been lodged.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): I want to confirm that what the senior Labour whip has said is absolutely right. Back in last December the Business Committee considered the matter of the Māori Affairs Committee travelling to Kawerau but being considered on that occasion to be present in the House for the purpose of voting. The minutes were circulated, and all members accepted that. The difficulty, though, is that it was not until 8 February—Tuesday of this week—that the Business Committee was notified that this bill would be on the Order Paper today. The question was asked of Dr Michael Cullen, Leader of the House, as to why he was putting this bill forward on a day when Māori Affairs Committee members would not be here. He said it was because there was no other day on which he could do it. Although there were arrangements and accommodations sought and in part made, particularly about the rūnanga bill and other such matters, there was no such gracious move on the part of the Government to see this bill debated on a day when the members who had done the work behind it could all be here to speak to it.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): On the basis of fairness, I have allowed one member from each side of the House to voice his or her concerns. I would like to inform the House that it is not a matter for a point of order; it is actually a matter for debate.

Jim Peters: Point of order—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I tell the member I have already ruled that it is not a matter for a point of order; it is a matter for debate as to whether the committee meets here or elsewhere.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT): It may be that this bill will be one of the first settlement bills that the ACT party can support at the end of the select committee process, because I was delighted to hear that New Zealand First will be moving for the elimination of all the references in this bill to the spurious, so-called principles of the treaty. I hope that that gets support from the whole of this House, because those spurious references have been the source of a great deal of grief. I am delighted that New Zealand First has reached the point of putting its votes where its mouth has been for a couple of years. I hope that that succeeds. But if it does not succeed this party will not vote for the bill, irrespective of whether the other matters that I now wish to raise as concerns are addressed, because it is time for this Parliament to stop passing law when it does not know the meaning of the words in it. It is time for Parliament, as Mr Brownlee said, to stop passing law that reflects a completely mythical partnership, and it is time to respect the actual words of the Treaty of Waitangi.

I just want to read one article of the treaty before commenting on the way in which it is reflected, or not reflected, in this bill. I am afraid I will read the English version. I would prefer to read the Māori version retranslated—Sir Hugh Kāwharu’s version, but it is not in the Treaty of Waitangi Act, which I think it is polite to use in this House: “Article the Second. Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession;”.

I have read that because one of the most offensive parts of this bill is the repeated, bleeding, nauseating references to the Crown accepting blame for the fact that many Māori chose to sell their land, as, indeed, have most people who have ever owned land in this country. There are very few pieces of land anywhere in this country that are still in the possession of the original holders, or even in the possession of their direct ancestors. Of course that occurs, but people sell their land because, as the treaty assumed, it may be their wish and desire to do so. Yet this Parliament is being asked in this bill to make a nauseating acceptance of blame for the fact that the land ceased to be held communally.

There are other things that we could dispute. But that one seems to me to be the most fundamental, because part of the purpose of the treaty was to enable the alienation of land. Let us remember the treaty was signed in a country where a population the size of that of the Palmerston North area occupied the entire country, and where the typical span of a farm might have been 10 acres. New Zealand was enormously long in land, and it was properly contemplated that Māori would sell land. It was also contemplated that they could make those decisions individually, and get individual benefit from them. The people who drafted the treaty were very aware of what happened when collective rights were left in the hands of the chiefs. They were very aware of the injustice that could occur if it were left up to the chiefs to decide on what happened to collective property.

I believe the Labour Government, for its own political advantage, is getting this House to make those nauseating statements of grief and blame because Māori people in this area have chosen not to maintain their 1840s lifestyle, or even their 1860s lifestyle, and have chosen to operate as individuals, as families, as hapū, and as iwi, but in very different ways from what they were then. It is time Labour gave that up, so we will move amendments on that. I doubt whether they will be accepted, but it is certainly time that that sort of thing was dropped from the precedents—[Interruption] Land was confiscated, but land was handed back. There were injustices. The United Future party is protesting at this speech.

One of the things that this bill does is to actually repeat the unfair pattern of the past. One of the complaints was that when the commissioners examined afterwards the far too broad confiscations—the very unfair collective punishments—and handed some property back to the sections of this iwi that had not been in rebellion, those amounts were handed back individually. But it was not going to be very easy to leave them in the state in which they had been confiscated. The commissioners were deliberately drawing distinctions between those who were the wrongdoers and those who were not. Now we have a collective settlement that ends up by giving the benefit of the compensation for those who were wronged to the descendants of those who were in the wrong. This bill does not draw distinctions between those who killed Volkner or Fulloon—or the descendants of the wrongdoers—and the benefit that can flow from this settlement. If the same principle had been being applied that the Crown is busy saying should have been applied back there in the 19th century, there would have been a very careful effort to make sure that the beneficiaries of this settlement did not include those who had brought down the wrath of the Queen on that iwi. To turn around now and say that what was done 150 years ago is wrong because it was collective punishment, and then to give collective compensation that includes benefit to those who ought to have been considered to be in the wrong, is wrong in itself. Either collective treatment was wrong then and it is wrong now, or it was not wrong then and it is not wrong now. It is time that this Parliament stopped pursuing those one-sided repeats of the wrong.

I was interested too, in Mr Peters’ explanation of the effect of clause 13. I do not fully understand how the definition of hapū flows through to the definition of Ngāti Awa, and accordingly to the definition of the beneficiaries. But I can see, when the people of Tāmaki-makau-rau and Pōneke are deemed to be hapū if they never have been under any kind of customary definition, that what we have here appears to be a deliberate attempt to extend benefit to circumstances where an entitlement should not exist, and the corresponding exclusion of people who should have just the same claim, when they have none. During the Committee stage of this bill I would like to hear what happens, for example, to the descendants of people who may qualify today when they, as so many of the energetic, capable, and promising ones do, go to live in Sydney. What happens to the descendants who have not got as far as Pōneke or Tāmaki-makau-rau, and who are simply living in Rotorua? Does it mean that they need to come back to this House to get an express extension of the definition of a separate hapū? What exactly does it mean?

We need people who understand this bill to be here in the House. I am not sure whether members of the Māori Affairs Committee could explain it, because that is the committee that tells us that we have rules relating to legislation to confirm agreements such as deeds of settlement. Those rules mean that we cannot substantively amend this bill in any way that is not acceptable to the party to the deed being implemented. The party to this deed is defined as a group of whom it appears only about one-third have approved the deal, and of whom less than one-third have approved the entity that is to receive it. Maybe the Crown is just being ruthlessly practical and saying it will settle with the nearest to a majority that it is going to get, and put that issue behind it. I am afraid that it will not put the matter behind us if the low vote actually means there is another group of claimants out there.

I have just mentioned two respects in which the bill can obviously be attacked in principle. Why did the select committee state that there are rules stating the House cannot change it? There may be conventions, and there may have been practices that the Government and the Crown have bound themselves by, but this House is not bound to rubber-stamp these settlements.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future): I rise on behalf of United Future to speak in support of the second reading of this bill. I note that the bill returns largely unchanged from the select committee. There has been a strengthening of the definition of Ngāti Awa, and there have been amendments to three ancillary claims, plus some technical changes. The progress last night of the bill that sets out the governance provisions that will be used to manage the resources from this settlement was further evidence that Ngāti Awa have given careful consideration to the process.

The settlement includes a Crown apology, cultural redress, and financial and commercial redress as well. The impact of the settlement on the wider community is minimal. There is no private land involved, and no national parks are included. Some small access issues are included—that is, camping rights for certain parts of the year—and a 6-hectare pā site, and there are some place-name changes, but apart from that there is very little impact on the wider community.

I am particularly pleased that the deed of settlement includes an account of the historical background regarding breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi that has been agreed to by both the Crown and Ngāti Awa, setting the record straight. This is important so that this redress is seen to be the response to genuine matters of law. I find it quite bizarre that a man who is normally renowned in this House for his expertise in law should make the statements that Mr Franks did in his previous speech. I want to read from a summary of the historical background to the claims by Ngāti Awa: “Subsequently, the Crown expeditionary force laid siege to the pa at Matata, Whakatane and Te Teko. In October 1865 over 30 men were arrested for the killing of James Fulloon and related offences. Many were found guilty at trial by Courts-Martial and sentenced to death. They were re-tried before the Supreme Court in Auckland. All were found guilty of at least one charge and were sentenced to imprisonment or execution. Two men were subsequently executed for the murder of Fulloon and three others died while in prison.” I say to Mr Franks that it certainly sounds as though justice was meted out to the individuals involved, but what he failed to mention was that Governor George Grey then deemed that the Bay of Plenty tribes had been in rebellion and confiscated 448,000 acres of land from those people. So here we are today, trying to make sense of individual property rights versus collective property rights. [Interruption] That is exactly why.

Ngāti Awa have been seeking much of this redress since the year 1870, so United Future wishes to reiterate the commitment made last night during the second reading of Te Runanga o Ngati Awa Bill to continue our support of the timely passage of this bill through the House.

DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki): I rise in support of the second reading of the Ngāti Awa Claims Settlement Bill, and in doing so echo the comments of previous speakers on the relationship—

Stephen Franks: Including me?

DARREN HUGHES: No, not of that member; I never echo the 17th century views of the ACT party. When a party is polling at only 1.6 percent it is very difficult to take its views very seriously. After September we will not have to hear any speeches like that when we talk about important constitutional matters in Parliament. Most political parties agree that the treaty settlements process is an honourable way of getting things done for all people in New Zealand. I look forward to the departure of the ACT party in that regard.

I want to draw to the House’s attention one small correction to the commentary on the bill from the Māori Affairs Committee. On page 13 it refers to 78.3 percent of valid votes being in support of the settlement, in terms of the Ngāti Awa voters. The correct figure is 87 percent, and that is the figure that should be in the commentary. I understand that was advised to the clerk and to the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee. There was much higher support amongst Ngāti Awa for the settlement—87 percent.

That is quite a big figure for the ACT party to comprehend, but something that shows me that this has been a very careful process between the Crown and Ngāti Awa, and it is for that reason that I support the second reading of the bill.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore): Lest people need to be corrected regarding that last speech, it is worth noting that 60 percent of all the people of Ngāti Awa did not even bother to vote. That is a growing problem. I know that the Minister of Māori Affairs said that only 30 percent voted in Tainui, but in fact the percentage was much higher.

Hon Mark Burton: It was the same percentage.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: No, I say to the Minister that it was lower than that. It was a lower percentage. We are seeing a declining percentage of people participating in those polls. I suggest that that is an issue of real concern. Despite what the Minister said by way of interjection, the percentages are going down. Those are the facts. It is worth noting the words of the Māori Affairs Committee. It states in the commentary on the bill: “The committee is concerned however that numbers participating in the ratification process were low. This concern has been expressed previously in regards to other Treaty claim settlement legislation, as it may ultimately affect the durability of settlements.”

I suggest that what that really reflects amongst the Māori community is treaty fatigue. We have all heard that saying, and it is normally applied to the wider community—that it wants the process completed. I suggest that it applies to the claimants, as well. Part of the reason is that the processes undertaken by this Government are simply taking too long. They are literally grinding down the people involved in the process, and are destroying consent by that. I suggest that a more rapid and engaged process would be more effective. The reality is that people want to move on, Māori and Pākehā alike, and the method the Government is currently choosing will simply not fulfil that.

It is worth noting that the members of the Māori Affairs Committee, by the Government’s own choice to construct the Order Paper in the way it has, cannot speak today. The Government has deliberately constructed an Order Paper to exclude them. I guess that the Government did not want members of the committee to refer to their own comments. It is worth noting who the members of the committee were, because those comments are their words. The chair at the time was Nanaia Mahuta, the deputy chair was Georgina te Heuheu, and the other members were Mahara Okeroa, Mita Ririnui, Gerry Brownlee, Pita Paraone, and Metiria Turei. The one committee member present here spoke directly about the concern the committee unanimously signed up to—I stress “unanimously”.

The point I am trying to make is that the systems and methods the Government is undertaking to deal with the treaty processes are destroying the integrity of the process. The longer the process is dragged out—the 10, 15, or 20 years that Dr Cullen referred to—the more and greater harm it will do over time. Perhaps we will actually see a time when the select committee, composed largely of Māori members, will say that a particular future settlement is so bereft of consent that it would find it hard to support by way of recommendation.

I turn to another issue—the constant reference to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Those principles have now bedevilled this country for some 20 years. They were inserted by the Lange Labour Government in the 1986 State-owned enterprises legislation—at, I might add, the very last minute, by way of a Supplementary Order Paper on the day the issue was voted on—and ever since, they have caused trouble.

The first thing that happened was that the case went to the Court of Appeal back in 1987. The court, obviously having to interpret the words in front of it, then developed the concept known as partnership. Where was that in the principles? Where is it in the treaty? It is not there at all, yet the Government has simply accepted the view of the Court of Appeal that partnership is the way to go. It must be clear to the Government by now that whatever consensus has existed around those terms has fundamentally broken down. I say to the Government that it is time to move on from that.

Surely the Government must recognise that one does not talk about principles of the treaty. What should be talked about are the words of the treaty—the undertakings in the agreement itself. Just because Sir Geoffrey Palmer made an error some 20 years ago, why do we have to live with it for the next 20 years? Why can we not fix it up? We should be talking about the words of the treaty itself, not the principles.

I turn to the meaning of those words and to what actually drives, when we think about it, the whole process of settlements. The fundamental provision we talk about in those settlements is article 2 of the treaty. Without reading out the words directly—that has already been done by Mr Franks—it is in essence a protection of property provision. That is what it is, and I am sure that the Government, if it thought about it, would acknowledge that simple fact. The whole point of those agreements—those special pieces of legislation—is essentially to provide a compensation scheme. That is what it is about. It is not about returning some form of governance, autonomy, partnership, or rangatiratanga—it is about compensation. That is what is really at the heart of this bill, and the compensation is reasonably significant.

Mr Franks, in particular, had some questions about who gets what, and whether people should be able to sell land. I perhaps take a different view. The actions of the Government back in 1877 to return to individuals lands that had been taken from the collective was wrong, and it led to enormous problems. In many respects, we are dealing with the consequences of those legislative actions today. That is why the land is being properly restored to the iwi itself. There is the rather odd construction in the legislation about these new hapū, which seem to be a new statutory invention. This Labour Government has decided that there are new entities, or hapū: one is Ngāti Awa ki Tamaki Makaurau, and another is Ngāti Awa ki Poneke in Wellington. It seems extraordinary that we in this Parliament would say that that is how Ngāti Awa is now constituted, and I wonder whether Ngāti Awa is actually constituted that way, at all. So we do take an enormous presumption on that.

The final point I will turn to is this. There are references in this agreement to the interests of Ngāti Awa in various harbours, waterways, and rivers. Just last year this Parliament spent a great deal of time on the Foreshore and Seabed Bill, which is now an Act. The great problem with that is it essentially provides special consultation rights; special rights of governance by some people in relation to the common property of New Zealanders at large, which other people do not have. That is a distinction from property rights. The Government has confused, in short, the difference between property rights, which should be properly restored when taken, and transcribed them into a form of consultation rights derived from the treaty principles. That will continue to get us into error until this Government says that the former Prime Minister and the Court of Appeal were wrong and that we should be sticking with the terms of the treaty itself.

JOHN TAMIHERE (Labour—Tamaki Makaurau): E ngā rau rangatira mā, e kui mā, tuahine mā, tuakana mā i raro i te maru o te tipuna rongonui a Awanuiārangi i Ngāti Awa. Kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi nunui ki a koutou. Kāre e wareware ki a mātou te mahi kaha mō ngā tīpuna ki a koutou. Kei te mihi nunui mō ngā tīpuna. Te mahi kaha ki te awhi, ki te hari i te manaaki mō ngā iwi kotahi tātou a Ngāti Awa. Haere, haere, haere atu rā.

[To the chiefs of a hundredfold, to the elder womenfolk, sisters, elder siblings and cousins under the jurisdiction of Awanuiārangi, the famous ancestor of Ngāti Awa, I greet and acknowledge you and extend a huge greeting to you. We will never forget the great work carried out by the ancestors for you. We cannot thank them enough. They worked hard to embrace and carry the welfare of the people and to make us of Ngāti Awa one. Depart the ancestors, depart and farewell.]

I was just making an acknowledgment of the leadership of Ngāti Awa, who are here in the House today, and also acknowledging the fact that they whakapapa back to a great ancestor in Awanuiārangi, and finally acknowledging the work of a number of their ancestors who have passed on.

The only person who ever becomes confused on treaty settlement legislation that comes before this House is Dr Wayne Mapp. He is aptly named “Mapp” because he is always looking for somewhere to go, but he can never find the right sorts of coordinates! I did want to say that I am grateful to Ngāti Awa, because—unlike the mean-spirited comments made by members of the National Party and particularly the ACT party—there is a generosity of spirit in which Māori entertain those settlements and agreements. It is not about compensation, but the amount of compensation that they are willing to settle for to bring closure, certainty, and sustainability to their people has to be acknowledged.

So to that extent, as a member of the Government, on behalf of those bringing closure to these people in terms of the Crown, I wanted to acknowledge the dignity, humility, and the integrity of the treaty partner called Ngāti Awa.

Finally, there are two other points that I did want to make. I commend the Governor-General’s speech made on Waitangi Day, when she directed all her comments to the National Party, and particularly to its leader, with regard to the cultural custom that the National Party now has, of driving all its women to the back seat. Georgina te Heuheu used to be on the front bench, but she is no longer on the front bench. Katherine Rich used to be on the front bench, but is no longer on the front bench. To be a member of the National Party front bench, one cannot be a female. So I just wanted to commend the Governor-General for bringing that to the attention of a once-great party.

Coming back to the Ngāti Awa Claims Settlement Bill, precedents have been set from Tainui all the way through in terms of the poll and the way in which it is conducted. Quite contrary to popular belief, the rate of non-participation in it can also be seen as a participatory contribution, because often our people are the first to stand up in terms of what they are against. So when they do turn up, they will vote against things, and they will vote in big numbers.

I also wanted to acknowledge the fact of the ACT member’s contribution, mean-spirited though he is—1.6 percent in the polls—and I have to say that the new, wonderful, telegenic leader whom ACT members elected just before Christmas cannot even pass muster to get 1 percentage point in the preferred Prime Minister poll. So I just say to the National and ACT members that I regret their not wanting to support this bill, and I do want to acknowledge Ngāti Awa.

Bill read a second time.

Motions

Terrorism Suppression Act—Referral of Provisions to Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade): I move, That, pursuant to section 70(2) of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, this House refer to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for consideration the matters specified in that provision, with the committee to report to the House in accordance with section 70(3) of that Act. When the Terrorism Suppression Act was passed back in October 2002, it contained a provision, section 70, which provided that the House of Representatives must as soon as practicable after 1 December 2004 refer to a select committee for consideration a review of the operations of certain provisions of that Act. Section 70 of the Act provides that the select committee to which those matters are referred must report its view on them to the House of Representatives before 1 December 2005. For the review to be considered, it requires a reference from the House to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee by Government motion. I thereby move that motion.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney): This is an important motion, because the legislation we are referring to here, the Terrorism Suppression Act, is very important legislation. That legislation implemented into New Zealand law two United Nations conventions, the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. In addition to that, the Act incorporated the requirements on New Zealand relating to the United Nations Security Council anti-terrorism resolution of 2001, Resolution 1372. It is that bit of the Act that the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee will be required to look at. It will not be required to examine the entire Act, but simply the parts of it that relate to Resolution 1373.

I guess we have to ask ourselves why this is happening. I have been trying to look back over my notes at the time in 2002, when the legislation was put through the House, to find out exactly why this unusual provision was incorporated in section 70.

John Carter: Why was it?

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: That is an interesting question. I think the provision—and I am just trying to hear what my colleague from the ACT party has just said—was really a sop to the Greens, because the Government was struggling to get its supporters on board. We know what the Green Party is like. It is a bit different from United Future. United Future, we know, is soft. Basically, it does everything the Labour Government tells it to do. But the Greens do not. They get a bit stroppy from time to time and the Government needs their support from time to time. The Greens got stroppy on this one—I guess because some of their mates are on the fringes of some of the groups that are at times under suspicion—and I think as a sop to them the Government agreed to include this rather unusual provision in section 70.

So the select committee has to have a look at some specific provisions. It is not being asked to review the entire Act, and I think it is really important the House understands that. It is not reviewing the provisions of the Act relating to the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, or those relating to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism; it is reviewing only the provisions that relate to Resolution 1373.

The select committee has to review the operation of those provisions. It must review whether the provisions should be retained or repealed, and, if retained, whether any amendments should be made to those provisions.

I say at the outset that the National Opposition certainly does not want to see any watering down of these provisions when the legislation goes back to the select committee. I guess we are concerned that the Green Party may try to use the review as a chance to twist the Government’s arm again, to try to water down some of these provisions. It is worth reminding Parliament that even though Resolution 1373 was one that followed the outrage of the 9/11 terrorists attacks—and some might be tempted to say that that was back in 2001 and as the world has moved on, maybe we do not need these provisions—it was only yesterday that terrorists in Madrid injured at least 42 innocent people by blowing them up with a car bomb. Some might say—the Greens might say—that Madrid is on the other side of the world, and anyhow—

Dail Jones: Freedom fighters.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH: The Greens might claim that those people are freedom fighters, although I personally would find that outrageous. But New Zealanders get involved in these parts of the world. It was only in March last year that British Airways, with which a lot of New Zealanders travel, cancelled a number of flights because of fears relating to terrorists. By mid-2004—so we are not talking about going back to 2001—the United States was issuing warnings that it was concerned about its homeland security. It was worried about information it was getting from a number of independent sources that indicated that al-Qaeda was planning further attacks against the mainland United States in July.

I know that the Greens can say we are still talking about the Northern Hemisphere, but in October last year the Australian Government issued a warning that Australians should be wary of travelling to the Philippines and to certain parts of that country because of the threat of terrorist attacks there. That is right down in our part of the world. Part of that warning issued by the Australian Government related to kidnapping, both in Indonesia and Malaysia. So here we are right down in the Asia-Pacific region of the world, which is our region. The Australian Government’s statement of October last year warned that the terrorist groups based in the Philippines “had the capacity to operate across a wide area”.

So just in the last 12 months there has been a range of terrorist threats and actions that make it very clear that even though under section 70 Parliament must refer those provisions relating to Resolution 1373 in the Terrorism Suppression Act of 2002 back to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, the National Opposition makes it very clear that in so doing we are not supporting that move because we think those provisions should in any way at all be watered down.

There is no evidence we are aware of that would indicate that these provisions are being used in any way that is contrary to the security interests of New Zealand, and I would think that the bulk of the public would not want to see this Labour Government have its arm twisted in any way by the Greens to water down any of the provisions in this legislation.

There is no question—and in fact I think the next item on the Order Paper looks at tightening one or two of the provisions in the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill—that, in reviewing what is in that Act, the Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee should be looking to see what should be tightened, if anything, rather than in any way considering a watering down.

Listeners may wonder why the National spokesperson is so concerned about this. I think all my colleagues will remember the speeches made by Keith Locke, the good Green member, when this legislation went through the House initially, and we heard all his arguments as to why some of these provisions should not be included in this legislation, or should be watered down. It worries us that once this measure is back at a select committee, the Government will be vulnerable to the arm-twisting of the Greens, on whom the Government—although the Greens are not a coalition partner—depends for votes on confidence and supply. We know that from past experience, for example, with the Penlink toll road legislation, when the Greens said no and the Government, which had initially supported it, buckled. The Government buckled when the Greens said no.

We are making it clear to this Parliament that this Government must not buckle, regardless of how the Greens may try to twist its arm on this. Our country’s security, the interests and the safety of our people as they travel the world—and our people travel a lot—are essential; wherever they may be, they must be safe, and this legislation is a vital part of New Zealand’s role in making sure our people, as well as the citizens of the free world, are as safe as they can be in their innocent activities. I make those points to make it very clear that we will not tolerate any attempt by the Greens to water down any of the provisions in this very important legislation.

DAIL JONES (NZ First): New Zealand First supports this motion. I am a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and I look forward to—

Simon Power: A hard-working and diligent member.

DAIL JONES: Thank you, very much. I will spend as much time as is absolutely necessary to give the fullest consideration to this motion at the select committee. New Zealand First is a non-aligned party in this Parliament, and, of course, we never support the Government on a motion of confidence, unlike the National Party, which did support the Government on a motion of confidence just the other day.

Simon Power: Rubbish!

DAIL JONES: The National Party did support the Government.

Simon Power: Where was the amendment?

DAIL JONES: We had an amendment. [Interruption] We tabled an amendment, and the National Party supported the Government on a motion of confidence. New Zealand First was the only party to oppose the Government on that motion of confidence. Every other party in the House supported the Government, so we are the only non-aligned party in this Parliament. We never support the Government on a motion of confidence.

Simon Power: What was that member doing in 1980?

DAIL JONES: A lot more than that member was doing, probably. Anyway, I do not want to waste the time of this House.

This is a fairly simple motion. New Zealand First will have a close look at it at the select committee, and in due course we will report back to the House.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): The review of the Terrorism Suppression Act is most welcome. The Greens support it because around the world anti-terrorism legislation has been subject to much criticism. Such legislation was also discussed in a major report commissioned by the Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, and delivered to him on 2 December. That report was from the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. The panel stated it had received widespread feedback that, in its words, “the current war on terrorism has in some instances corroded the very values that terrorists target: human rights and the rule of law”. We have had a reinforcement of that judgment with more and more reports of mistreatment and torture by American personnel at Guantanamo Bay, and by both the American and British forces in Iraq. We have had our own shameful episode with regard to Ahmed Zaoui, who was imprisoned without charge for 2 years but now, thankfully, is out of prison.

A big problem with regard to the anti-terrorism legislation enacted since September 11 is that those who have been most keen to drive it through have been themselves guilty of terrorist acts. We just need to look at how the United States forces have operated in Iraq to see that. The devastation of Fallujah by American bombs and missiles was clearly terrorism. The American forces knew that most of those killed would be civilians, yet they went ahead. They wanted to teach the people of Fallujah a lesson: that supporting the resistance carried a heavy price, and that if people do not let US troops occupy their cities, they risk the destruction of their cities. That was a replay of United States policy in Viet Nam four decades ago. Members may remember a US general proclaiming that he had to destroy a Viet Namese village in order to save it. Unfortunately, because America is a superpower it gets off too lightly when it engages in what could be called State terrorism. So also do some of its allies.

Let us look at what has happened over the past week, following revelations that an Israeli diplomat was expelled from Australia and the press was reporting the expulsion had something to do with the attempt by Israel’s Mossad spy agency to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports. It is rather odd that our Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that he was not going to investigate that matter on our behalf, even though two Mossad agents had been jailed for the fraud and there was evidence that that particular Mossad operation against New Zealand had been run out of Australia. The relevance of that to this review of the Terrorism Suppression Act is that the Mossad operation is the only potentially terrorism-linked operation in New Zealand since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985.

Israel has used false passports to engage in state terrorism in the past. In 1997 one of its operatives used a false Canadian passport in an attempt to assassinate a Palestinian leader, Khalid Meshaal in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Has Mossad been designated a terrorist organisation under our Terrorism Suppression Act? No. That Act does not accommodate such State terrorism. Matters would be even worse if the Israeli newspaper Haaretz is correct in stating that our Security Intelligence Service has a relationship with Mossad and that Mossad was pressuring it to sweep the passport fraud under the table. I do not believe that our SIS would have played ball with Mossad in those circumstances, but it may well be that the SIS and its Australian partner, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, were not looking out for Mossad terrorism. One of the jailed Mossad agents, Eli Cara, was able to run a dummy tourism company in Australia, north of Sydney, and to travel between New Zealand and Australia 24 times in 2 to 3 years without detection.

One of the main concerns expressed by submitter after submitter when the terrorism suppression legislation went through the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee before it was enacted was that the definition in the legislation of a terrorist or a person who is helping a terrorist is too broad. The definition could potentially cover visitors to New Zealand from liberation movements overseas, or people in New Zealand who support those movements. It could even cover New Zealanders engaged in non-violent domestic protests or strikes, if their actions were deemed to disrupt infrastructure facilities in a manner that endangered human life—because, according to the definition in the Act, there does not have to be an intention to endanger human life. The definition of terrorism provided by the high-level panel reporting to Kofi Annan at least has the virtue of being restricted to acts “intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants”. That gets away from the problematic reference to simply disrupting infrastructure that is in our Act.

Another problem with regard to the designation of terrorist organisations is that it is a political process under the authority of the Prime Minister. We have seen how that type of political designation process can go wrong, in the case of Ahmed Zaoui. The Government put him in jail as a high security risk, but 2 years later it came up empty-handed when the Supreme Court asked it for evidence as to why he should not be given bail. Now he is free. The people currently designated as terrorists under our Act are essentially those whose names have been provided by UN agencies. The high-level panel reporting to the UN has expressed concern that that process is not adequate. One of the panel’s recommendations is: “The Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee should institute a process for reviewing the cases of individuals and institutions claiming to have been wrongly placed or retained on its watch lists.” There is no proper judicial process whereby those labelled as terrorists by the UN committees have the right to contest that designation, either before or after the event. New Zealanders are also being affected by the very large so-called terrorist watch list operated by the United States. Last year a New Zealander, Mohammad Abbas, had his money transfer from New Zealand to his family in India delayed for a month because his name matched that of a person on the huge US watch list.

At least under New Zealand’s Act there is recourse to a court after an individual or group has been designated as a terrorist. But that process is flawed, as is illustrated again by the Zaoui case. Mr Zaoui has been handicapped by the Government’s claim that it has classified information on him—information that he has not been allowed to see in 2 years. The Act allows for a similar withholding of crucial information in court proceedings following a terrorist designation, on the basis that the information is classified.

In the US, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand alleged terrorists have not been allowed to have a proper judicial process to clear their names. The Supreme Court in America, the law lords in Britain, and the courts in New Zealand are, bit by bit, trying to overcome unjust anti-terrorism administrative procedures and to re-establish proper judicial oversight. Last December the British law lords brought down a landmark ruling that the Government was acting illegally by indefinitely detaining foreigners suspected of terrorism without charging or trying to charge them. The process was labelled a violation of European human rights laws. One of the judges, Lord Leonard Hoffman, stated: “The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.” And it is for this Parliament to do that, too.

That is why this review process is so important. As Lord Rodger stated in the law lords’ judgment: “There is also a danger that, by its very nature, a concern for national security may bring forth measures that are not objectively justified. Sometimes, of course, as with the Reichstag fire, national security can be used as a pretext for repressive measures that are really taken for other reasons.”

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): This is a very specific motion—namely, that the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee review certain matters that are specified in section 70(3) of the principal Terrorism Suppression Act. In that regard, much of what we have just heard is utterly irrelevant to the process that we will be undertaking.

I think the previous speaker’s speech demonstrated a confusion that is present in a number of minds. There will be many people in this House, in this country, and around the world who view events in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and some of the other hot spots in the world today, with an increasing degree of unease as to whether the military and political adventures that have been embarked upon can be brought to a successful conclusion. But that does not make those forces from the United States and other places—in some cases, supported by New Zealand—that are doing their best to bring about that conclusion, terrorists. That is the essential confusion in the member’s mind. We have known since September 11 what the major terrorism organisations in the world are. We know what steps we as a civilised community have to take, both to play our part in protecting our citizens from the terrorists’ adventures, and also to contribute to the international effort to suppress terrorism. Notwithstanding the misgivings that people may have about outcomes, I do not think there would be very many people in the world who would say we should not be taking a strong anti-terrorist line. That is what I believe the principal Act is about. The review that the motion requests the committee to undertake relates to the designation of terrorist organisations as part of that principal legislation. I cannot see that there can be any huge objection to that.

I will pick up a comment that Dr Lockwood Smith made and correct him ever so slightly. Although it might suit his political argument to claim that the Government relies on the Greens for confidence and supply, that is happily not the case. The Government relies on United Future for confidence and supply. I am prepared to make this point: if there was any suggestion that the Government would seek to compromise New Zealand’s national security to appease a party that gives its support from time to time—namely, the Greens—then that would be the sort of issue that would call into question the wisdom of our continuing to provide confidence and supply. I have to say I see no evidence that that will happen. The assurance I can give the House is that we will not be complicit, in any arrangement through this review, in compromising New Zealand’s national security or the security of individual New Zealanders. I happily reassure Dr Smith on that.

I also want to make the observation that the select committee will take this role seriously. I have the privilege to chair that committee. I think it is a good, balanced committee. It has members from most parties in the House, who contribute effectively to the work that it does. I am sure that they will carry out this task responsibly and in a measured way, and will certainly meet the deadline that is being sought of us with this resolution.

So I am happy to indicate United Future’s support for this measure. I think we should now proceed to deal with the companion measure, which is the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2), because it deals with some of the longer-term matters that arise from this.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT): I wanted to hear the speech of the Green member Keith Locke before I spoke, partly because of the dire warnings from Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith when he spoke. He seemed to feel there would be some kind of infection of mass subversion from Mr Locke, and he warned the House against listening to him. I was challenged, considering how closely Mr Locke and I are located, to keep my independence and to be sure I was not infected by whatever it was that Dr Smith was so fearful of.

I think section 70 is a sensible provision, in terms of the Terrorism Suppression Act. It was the least that Parliament could do to reassure itself that it was not creating a law on our statute book—and, quite truthfully, it was being created in a bit of a panic, in a great rush—that would erode the very liberties that we were so keen to ensure we protected. So I do not subscribe to the mocking tone that Lockwood Smith adopted. I am pleased to hear the chairman of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee say that the committee will take the job seriously, as I believe there is a serious job to be done.

I do worry about the poorly defined terms in the Terrorism Suppression Act. We have to remember that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. We have had many occasions when we have applauded people who have been accused by the Governments of their countries—often, oppressive Governments—of all sorts of offences and given all sorts of labels, including that of terrorist. We should remember that the Indonesian Government, for example, would have been delighted to be able to force New Zealand to implement provisions like those in the Terrorism Suppression Act to lock in its rule of East Timor. The offence of harbouring could well have been claimed by the Indonesians in terms of people who supported the man who is now the leader of East Timor.

So I want the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to take its task seriously. I want it to go very carefully through the definitions, to make sure that in that initial rush of fear we did not put in the legislation terms that were unnecessarily wide. I want it to make sure that New Zealand citizens are not subject to extradition at the request of Governments that do not respect human rights in the same way that we do.

I am mindful that this issue was triggered by a designation by an international body that we cannot have confidence in. The international body that triggered this issue is the same body that ran the oil for food programme. There was corruption in that, as had been alleged by people I thought were conspiracy theorists, the oil for food programme was feeding not just fat cats aligned to Iraq but fat cats—

Hon Phil Goff: The resolution was moved by the United States and supported unanimously by the Security Council. What is the member talking about?

STEPHEN FRANKS: The Hon Phil Goff is attacking my reference to the corruption in the oil for food programme. He says it was moved by the United States. That instinctive anti-Americanism comes out in Mr Goff—that knee-jerk feeling that if someone criticises something raised by the United States, it immediately falls into a them-and-us category—people are either for the US or against it. The member knows that the ACT party generally supports the firm line the US takes. He thinks he can destroy an argument in this House by pointing out that I am criticising something originally sponsored by the US.

What we find, of course, is that this legislation did go far too far. In fact, when one reads it one sees that things like the campaign in World War II to raise funds to buy a bomber for Britain would have been illegal in New Zealand, because the bombing campaign was blatantly aimed at destroying the morale of the German people.

Hon Phil Goff: Rubbish!

STEPHEN FRANKS: Well, Mr Goff should read his own legislation. He should read the definition of terrorism. He will find that if it is an act aimed at destroying the morale of a people, then it can come within that definition. I hope the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee will come up with recommendations that enable us to target the kinds of terrorists that we want to target, and that will ensure that the legislation does not inadvertently catch people whom we might consider champions against oppressive Governments.

I am concerned to know whether the court protections built into this bill are effective. I want to know who has been checking just how much money has been confiscated or detected. I hope the select committee will ensure that it is satisfied that this law distinguishes properly between New Zealand citizens and foreigners.

I know that this Government is a soft touch. The whole of the terrorist world probably knows that the New Zealand Government opened its arms to refugees without properly checking them. To people whom Australia would not accept, the New Zealand Government said: “Come along, join us.” There is quite a bit of cant and there is quite a bit of pretence in this legislation. It looks tough on paper, when in fact it is not tough in practice. The immigration policy we run is Australia’s flapping back door. That is probably of more comfort to terrorists than any amount of money that would be collected in a country like New Zealand, and sent off to terrorist organisations. I hope the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee actually tries to inquire into the relative threat represented by an immigration policy that patently pretends not to notice whether immigrants are drawn from terrorist-sponsoring populations, compared with the threat represented by the raising of money in New Zealand for people designated by the United Nations—by whoever is the ruling group in the United Nations—as terrorists.

I am very mindful of some of the huge ironies in United Nations’ decision-making. Some of the human rights committees, for example, end up with people from countries like the Sudan sitting on them. Those countries are the worst abusers of human rights in the world at the moment, probably, and people from them sit on those committees. So I want to know that New Zealand has not been signed up to a regime that means we have a knee-jerk obligation to jump to the order of countries like the Sudan and its colleagues, simply because they have managed to have an organisation designated as terrorist.

I want to know that China, for example, cannot some day order us to suppress Falun Gong. If those people are peaceful, if they offend no New Zealand law, yet they offend the Chinese Government, we want to make sure that this legislation cannot be used by the Chinese Government to put the New Zealand Government’s arm up its back and make it suppress them. I want to know that the French Government’s bombing of the Rainbow Warrior would fall within the definition. As I look at it, I am not sure what this country would have done about all the citizens of New Zealand who were trading with, and giving aid and comfort to, France, knowing that the French Government had conducted a terrorist act on our property.

I want to know that this measure is in New Zealand’s interests, and not simply in the interests of Phil Goff ensuring his eventual succession to the Labour Party leadership by kowtowing to enough United Nations requirements to ensure that the Prime Minister is booted upstairs to a new job. It might be very difficult for Phil Goff to come up with a way of taking over the leadership unless he can get the Prime Minister enticed offshore. But, certainly, jumping to the order of the United Nations, sticking really fierce provisions on paper, and not actually looking after New Zealand’s interests in practice are things that have marked this Government’s approach to foreign affairs.

This legislation was something we should have done, something we should have put into our law, but I want the select committee to look at it very closely, because it is certainly plain that some of the provisions were hastily drawn up. They are very broad. They probably catch things that they should not. Indeed, the Terrorism Suppression Act admits as much. When an Act has definitions, then states that, for the avoidance of doubt, they do not extend to someone who is advocating democratic Government, we can see that the drafter was worried that he or she might have caught things that no one really wanted to catch. This review in cool hindsight is precisely what was contemplated by Parliament. Parliament was worried when it put section 70 into this Act. We want it to be done in a proper way.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): I want to take just a short call—I was not intending to take a call—because it has just occurred to me, as I have listened to most of the previous addresses given by members, that it has been a quite wide-ranging debate, given that we are considering a motion, which is pretty specific. I thought I should just draw the attention of the House to the actual provision. The motion states: “That, pursuant to section 70(2) of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, this House refer to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for consideration the matters specified in that provision,”.

I may have missed it, but I am not sure that—other than my colleague Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith, who made reference to it—any of the other speakers have spoken specifically about what those matters are. There may be some listeners who are wondering what United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 is actually about. The motion states that the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee is to look at the provisions of it and see whether they are still applicable, etc. We have already heard that the National Party does not wish to see any of them watered down, and, indeed, will be resisting that in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee—and I am sure the chairman will not want them to be watered down, anyway. We will certainly be looking to make sure that that does not happen.

I thought I would—given the speech made by Keith Locke, particularly—just refer to a couple of the sections in the resolution, so that people can have an understanding of what we are debating. The first one in that resolution states: “Reaffirming also its unequivocal condemnation of the terrorist attacks which took place in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001, and expressing its determination to prevent all such acts,”. Well, surely there cannot be any member in this Parliament, including Mr Locke, who would want to oppose that statement. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe the Greens think it is all right that September 11 took place—I do not know. Certainly, it seems to me that this Parliament would want to support that sort of statement.

It goes on to state: “Reaffirming further that such acts, like any act of international terrorism, constitute a threat to international peace and security,”. Well, how can anybody want to oppose that? I would not have thought that anybody would want to oppose it, but, again, maybe there are members in this House who do. That would be unfortunate, to say the least, because I doubt whether it would represent New Zealand’s view. It continues: “Reaffirming the inherent right of individual or collective self defence as recognized by the Charter of the United Nations …”. Again, how can one oppose those sorts of things?

The resolution goes on in that vein. I just thought I would draw to the House’s attention that those are the specific sorts of things that the select committee would be considering, and I for one am very comfortable with them. I think we should support them. But I would be interested to see whether we get any submissions that suggest changes or alterations. If we do, then we would want to make sure that they add to, rather than take away from, the legislation.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2)

First Reading

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade): I move, That the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. It is my intention to move that the bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for consideration, that the committee present its final report on or before 31 May 2005, that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Order 191 and Standing Order 194(1)(b) and (c).

This brief bill contains three matters. The first relates to the expiry of the designations of terrorist organisations. Provisions in the existing Act mean that New Zealand’s designations of terrorist organisations, including several hundred organisations listed by the United Nations Security Council, expire after 3 years unless renewed by order of the High Court. The drafting of that provision created the unintended need for each designation to be renewed individually, meaning that it would be impossible to renew the first 318 United Nations Security Council - listed designations that New Zealand has listed before they expire in October. That would put New Zealand in breach of Security Council Resolution 1373, which was passed unanimously by the United Nations in the wake of September 11, and of other related resolutions.

In order to avoid that, this bill will extend the designations for 2 years after the date on which the select committee reports to Parliament. The extension will allow the select committee review of the Act, due to be reported back by 1 December 2005, to consider fully what changes, if any, should be made to the renewal process. At the time the original bill was first introduced, there was uncertainty as to the nature and the extent of the terrorism phenomenon. An assumption that some designations might be short lived has since proved to be false, and New Zealand now has over 420 designated terrorist organisations, all of which are on the United Nations Security Council list, and is considering adding more groups to that list.

The second change proposed involves extending the provisions of the Act that prohibit the financing of terrorism. Although the Act currently prohibits the financing of designated terrorist organisations, or financing that is known or intended to be used for the purpose of carrying out terrorist acts, it may not cover general financial support not directly linked to a specific terrorist act to an organisation that is involved in terrorism. That would cover things such as the payment of general routine expenses, rent, etc. To address that potential loophole the bill creates a new offence, as new section 8(2A) of the principal Act, that will criminalise the provision of general financial support to all terrorist organisations, whether designated or not. That is needed if New Zealand is to comply fully with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 and the standards required by the OECD’s financial action task force. Given the fluidity of terrorist movements and the unpredictable emergence of new terrorist groups, that change is the most workable way to ensure that New Zealand remains compliant with international obligations prohibiting the funding of terrorist organisations.

The third proposal in the bill involves a technical amendment to change an existing reference from the Chief Justice to the Chief High Court Judge. Section 38(3) of the principal Act states that if information presented, or proposed to be presented, in support of an application to the High Court includes classified security information, the proceedings must be heard and determined by the Chief Justice, by one or more judges nominated by the Chief Justice, or by both. With the creation of the Supreme Court since the principal legislation went through and the Chief Justice’s membership of the Supreme Court now, it is obviously more appropriate that the person specified for that function should be the Chief High Court Judge.

I commend this bill to the House.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): The National Party will support this bill going to the select committee. I will not take an unnecessarily long time to speak, but I have a couple of points to make on this issue. The first is, and I think it is worthwhile for us to remember this, that we do not live in a benign society—anything but. If any people, anywhere in the world, think that they are not in a situation where they could be involved in terrorism, then they should think again. No country is immune—none at all. Indeed, it worries me that we may well be seen to be a soft target. We need to be sure that we are playing our part and doing our bit to make sure that our people are protected as best as we are able. We need to play our part, and I am glad—although it took a while to drag the Labour Government into this—that at least we now have Labour accepting that there is an issue that we need to address. This bill brings that issue to the House’s attention.

The second part that I want to refer to specifically is the issue of the funding that the Minister has referred to, and again I think that is a very useful addition to the substantive legislation, in as much as there are many ways that one could fiddle the legislation, if one likes, if one is clever enough—and there are a whole lot of people who are clever enough. The Minister has put into this bill provisions for us to try to make sure that we cover every possible way that terrorism may be funded. I think it is important, as we take this bill through, that the select committee gives that proper consideration.

September 11 will be remembered, probably, for ever—certainly for centuries—and it will no doubt be referred to in many, many debates around the world for many, many years to come. One of the things that I am pleased about is that, generally, this Parliament takes terrorism seriously, and that every member of this Parliament takes it seriously. It pleases me that with the exception of one or two members we all speak, generally, with the same voice in expressing our concerns and our worries that there are people in this world who will use terrorism as a way to achieve their ends. Terrorism is not acceptable, and we as a Parliament and as a country, on behalf of our people, will do everything we can to make sure that it does not affect our shores.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West): I, certainly, as a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, want to speak on this bill. I acknowledge that the chairperson of that committee will also do so very shortly as well, and acknowledge that for us on the select committee this will be a very important task, and will be an exercise that one would hope would have a broad cross-section of support right across this Chamber. Obviously, in a democracy, we acknowledge that there will be those who have concerns with aspects of this bill, and that is the natural process of a parliamentary democracy with checks and balances. I believe that that is appropriate and useful.

I will just take the time, if I can, to again highlight the key points of the bill, which I think was more than adequately done by the Minister. I certainly intended to take a full 10-minute call on this bill, but I will not; I will keep my speech reasonably brief.

Obviously this bill amends the Terrorism Suppression Act. The key issue from my point of view is that the principal Act provides that designation as a terrorist organisation expires after 3 years, unless it is renewed by an order of the High Court. This, of course, has created the unintended need for each designation to be renewed individually. Of course, it would be impossible to renew all of those 318 listed designations before they expire next October and, of course, that would put New Zealand in breach of the relevant Security Council resolution. So the bill extends the expiry date for 2 years to 2007. That extension will allow a select committee review of the Act and to fully consider what changes, if any, should be made to the renewal process, and for any resulting changes to be implemented.

I just finally acknowledge the previous speaker. Yes, we do live in a world where terrorism is, indeed, a very serious threat. Hopefully through the robust consideration of the select committee we will ensure that innocent people are not caught up in this. That is very important. But we will be very focused that the security and integrity of our country is protected at the same time.

DAIL JONES (NZ First): New Zealand First supports this bill going to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. As a member of that select committee I look forward to giving full consideration to it, and to the submissions on it, and considering it again when it is reported back to the House.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): The Green Party is opposed to this bill. Of course we are opposed to people financing terrorist acts themselves—real terrorist acts: bombing, injuring, or murdering people. They are crimes, and they must be punished accordingly. But are terrorist crimes any different from similar crimes that are not committed with a political, ideological, or religious purpose in mind? Murder is murder, whether one murders someone in a bank raid or in a politically motivated terrorist act. It is still murder and should have the same penalty.

Our Crimes Act already punishes people if they finance criminal activities or conspire to commit such activities. The Terrorism Suppression Act also at present penalises financing of such activities, although it problematically introduces different penalties for supporting such crimes of violence than exist in the Crimes Act.

There is also the problem of the definition of terrorists or terrorist groups in the Terrorism Suppression Act, which I will discuss a bit later on. However, this current bill goes beyond what is in the current criminal law, as I understand it. It penalises people who are not financing terrorist activities as such, but who are helping “an organisation that is involved in terrorism (eg, the payment of general routine expenses such as rent, etc).” That is a bit from the explanatory note of the bill.

So if we were doing this under ordinary criminal law, it would mean, for example, punishing a family for paying the rent of a family member who might happen to be involved in a criminal gang, who happens to live at home with his or her family, or someone who does something similar for a flatmate who happens to be involved in criminal activities. I am indicating that because it gets us into a much more difficult and a greyer area.

This problem can be even worse in the case of alleged terrorists or terrorist groups, because to be designated as a terrorist or terrorist group under the Terrorism Suppression Act the said terrorist does not need to have any record whatsoever of having carried out a terrorist act. The person or group needs only to be deemed by the Prime Minister of the day to have such an intention. So we are in a grey area, particularly when the designation of who is or who is not a terrorist is made by political authorities, not by judicial ones; and mistakes are made in this regard, because when we give the decision to a political figure the political prejudices and agendas that operate at the time can lead to the designation of some groups and individuals as terrorist when they should not be.

We just need to look at a parallel case—that is, at how Ahmed Zaoui has been treated by authorities in New Zealand. In effect he has been treated as a terrorist. True, he has not been officially designated as a terrorist under the Terrorism Suppression Act, so the Dominican friars who are currently covering his rent cannot be thrown in jail under this amendment. However, members will see the problem.

The so-called war on terrorism operates a bit like the anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s when all sorts of people were labelled as communists. Rumour and media stories became proof that someone was a terrorist. The refugee status branch of our Immigration Service acted in precisely this way in the Zaoui case. It actually wrote in its decision that because of all the media accusations that the refugee status branch had got from the Internet against Mr Zaoui it could not take the chance of giving him refugee status. Fortunately, the Refugee Status Appeals Authority did a more objective and thorough determination and overruled the refugee status branch.

Much later in the saga around Mr Zaoui we had a police mistake. Last year the police were rapped over the knuckles by our Prime Minister, Helen Clark, because they confused Mr Zaoui’s Islamic Salvation Front with the terrorist Algerian organisation, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). The whole designation process is so loose. In the 3 years of the operation of the Terrorism Suppression Act not a single individual or group operating in New Zealand, or even outside of New Zealand, has been designated as terrorist after a specific analysis by the New Zealand Government authorities. The terrorist individuals and organisations on the list so far have simply been transferred from the UN list.

However, there are problems with that UN list—as the United Nations high panel reported last year when it indicated that people had been “wrongly placed or retained” on such lists. It is pretty clear that people end up on such UN lists mainly at the behest of the United States Government. I think we know that the Bush administration does not particularly care if it gets things wrong in matters of who is and who is not a terrorist. We need only to look at what has been happening in the American detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, where alleged terrorists have been kept for years without explicit evidence, or trials, and without the right to see a lawyer. Many of those who have finally been released, such as last year four Britons, have been found to have had nothing to do with terrorism. The Britons I refer to just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But so far as I can tell, there is no hint of an admission of error, apology, or compensation from the Bush administration for their wrongful detention.

One of the clauses in the bill is to extend for 2 years the 318 designations of al-Qaeda and Taliban related terrorist entities under the Terrorism Suppression Act that will otherwise expire in October this year unless each designation is extended by the High Court. The particular problem with this is that we know from Kofi Annan’s high-level panel that some of these designations are almost certainly wrong, and as the panel indicated the list needs reassessment

So how can Parliament knowingly renew these terrorist designations without any analysis when it knows that some of them are almost certainly wrong? This is not conscionable. We can cause great upset and injustice when we start criminalising fund-raising not for terrorist acts, but for community groups allegedly associated with terrorism, particularly with all the political agendas running in the Bush administration and elsewhere.

We could take, for example, a US group called Global Relief, which was the second-largest Islamic charity in the US. Three years ago two dozen FBI agents raided its headquarters in Chicago without warrant, carted off all its records, and froze $900,000 of its assets. Later, it was designated a terrorist organisation by the US Treasury Department and is now effectively shut down, even though none of its principals have been charged with any crimes. Those principals have not been able to challenge effectively the Government’s actions in court, because they were confronted with a barrier of statements like: “The evidence we have against you is classified and we can’t tell you what it is.” That has shades, of course, of the Zaoui case. It has turned out in the United States that what has surfaced in terms of some of the evidence against Global Relief has come from newspaper clippings.

In the explanatory note to the bill, the Government claims that the amendments are: “… necessary to ensure that New Zealand fully complies with international standards for counter terrorist financing, as set out and assessed by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF),”. I have looked at the special recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering on terrorist financing, and I cannot see that those would require such an amendment.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I assure the House that I will speak briefly, in support of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to offer a clarification, and one substantive point in favour of the bill, and to give the House an assurance.

The clarification I offer is that it may have been lost in the course of the last speech that it was from a member of the Green Party, which is opposed to the suppression of terrorism in New Zealand. As I tried to listen to that speech, I almost became persuaded that Mr Locke had a point. We do not need anti-terrorism legislation; we could simply let the Greens loose on every terrorist organisation, and they could bore them into submission and surrender!

More seriously, the substantive point that I want to make is that this is relatively straightforward legislation. The rollover of the designations is simply a practical move, because otherwise the courts would do nothing more for the next 2 years but deal with those designations. I do not think the citizenry would find that to be particularly satisfactory. With regard to the extension in clause 8, which the Minister referred to, it is important to note that clause 4 refers to what those terrorist organisations might be, and that is organisations that, although not designated as terrorist, have actually been involved in the carrying out of one or more terrorist acts. I think the concern that we are broadening the law unnecessarily is dealt with by that provision.

My final point is to offer the House in general, and my colleagues on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in particular, an assurance that even though the resolution that accompanies the introduction of this bill gives the committee wide powers to sit all over the place, I do not intend that we use those powers anything other than sparsely. I hope that, with the cooperation that normally prevails in the committee, we can get by without using them. But I am conscious that there is a deadline in place, and that is why it is necessary to have that requirement.

Ron Mark: Couldn’t we go to Iraq to sample first-hand the terrorism experience?

Hon PETER DUNNE: If it were possible that that could be arranged, it might be that we came back with one or two members less.

Ron Mark: Learn to understand the terrorists! Be at one with them!

Hon PETER DUNNE: Yes, we could try to bond with them, and they might well try to bond with one or two from our side. But, more seriously, I simply say on United Future’s behalf—and I echo the comments made by other speakers—that we cannot be too vigilant in terms of our response to international terrorism. This legislation is a sensible step forward, and I welcome its introduction.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore): I will speak briefly on this bill and perhaps refer to the prior motion. As has been stated by many, this legislation is necessary because of the fact that the designations will expire if it does not happen. Let us imagine the situation if this legislation were not passed. Three hundred and eighteen designations, including those of al-Qaeda, would lapse. I imagine that even Keith Locke could not support that, yet I suspect he will vote against this bill, so we will find out. The bill is absolutely necessary.

However, I turn to another point. Over the last few days New Zealanders have been watching on their televisions and reading in their newspapers about momentous events in the Middle East. There looks to be a new breakthrough between Israel and Palestine—the first real hope for many, many years of progress in that conflict. There was a huge participation in the vote in Iraq, at enormous risk, by literally millions of Iraqis. Even those who opposed the war would recognise that that is a real measure of progress. I would go further to suggest that we would not have seen the progress between Israel and Palestine without that same progress in Iraq, and we will be seeing it in other Middle Eastern countries. Even in Saudi Arabia there seem to be tentative steps being made towards democratic reform.

Those are fundamental outcomes of the world’s commitment to anti-terrorism legislation. It is the beneficial by-product of the world saying in unity in the United Nations back in 2000 that terrorism was not the way of the future—it was not the way forward. That is why it was the United Nations that made those designations. Frankly, I was surprised to hear Mr Locke being critical of that. I always understood that he and his party, with some reservations, were supporters of the United Nations. If one is a supporter of the United Nations, one accepts the consensus view on those terrorist organisations. They are organisations that, by the widest possible consensus, are seen literally as the enemies of peace-loving people. They are the people who attack the foundations of democracy and the rule of law.

So it is right today that we pass this bill to the select committee to maintain those designations because they will expire otherwise. That is the problem. So this legislation is necessary.

I will turn very briefly to the review. That review will be wide ranging. There is no doubt that the committee struggled long and hard with many of those definitions and it is almost certainly the case that they need a further considered review. The resolution passed in 2001 by the United Nations was very, very wide-ranging indeed, and a whole range of legislation, particularly the counter-terrorism legislation, has been a response to that. But I think that most people would concede that the select committee struggled with a range of those definitions, so it is time to look at the legislation as a whole to see whether the balance has been correctly struck. So I support both the motion and this bill.

I want to say this point in closing. The fight against terrorism is actually a fight for democracy and the rule of law, and we are seeing expressions of that in the Middle East. I would hope that that would be recognised broadly, or unanimously, within this Parliament, yet there is one party—the Green Party—that consistently turns its face against that recognition. Those members will find themselves arguing against the unanimous voice of mankind, the United Nations, which has said that certain people are enemies of freedom and the rule of law, and that their activities need to be stopped in a lawful and reasonable way. New Zealand has a proud record on this, and that is why the National Party is proud and wants to support these two measures.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): The ACT party also rises in support of the motion to refer this bill to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and also to reflect with some sadness that at this point of recommending the bill to the select committee, there is not unanimous support across the House for it. I, too, question the logic of the Green Party and its objection to this bill. I listened most carefully to Mr Locke, because quite often I find myself in agreement with him, and I say to him that I am also quite clear that we do not want to be passing, in a fit of panic, legislation that diminishes our freedoms in a vain hope of, say, stopping terrorists. But when we look at this bill, it is quite clear what it is setting out to do.

Let us think about it. If we look at the principal Act, what is a “terrorist act”? What is a “terrorist group”? It is a group that is set up to induce terror in a civilian population or to unduly compel or to force a Government or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act. So it is an organisation that is prepared to scare civilians in order to get a Government to undertake a particular course of action.

The outcomes resulting from this terror are referred to in section 5(3) as: “(a) the death of, or serious bodily injury to, 1 or more persons … (b) a serious risk to the health or safety of a population: (c) destruction of, or serious damage to, property of great value or importance, or major economic loss, or major environmental damage … (d) serious interference with, or serious disruption to, an infrastructure facility, if likely to endanger human life: (e) introduction or release of a disease-bearing organism, if likely to devastate the national economy of a country.”

So we are talking about organisations such as al-Qaeda, which are committed to scaring civilian populations through threats of disease, through bombings, blowing up power stations, or whatever. Well, I would have thought that the Greens would be against that. I would have thought that those members were opposed to 9/11.

Now I will cut particularly to what this bill is addressing, which is this. It is already an offence to finance such terrorist acts—and it should be, because just as the man whose finger is on the trigger is responsible, so too is the man who gives that terrorist the wherewithal to do that damage. Those people are terrorists, too. I ask whether Mr Locke can see that.

Dr Wayne Mapp: He can’t.

RODNEY HIDE: No, I do not think that he can. This is the next question, which is what the bill is seeking to do: what about the financier who is not actually financing the bomb, but is paying the rent that finances the terrorist organisation in other ways? Well, I say that that person’s hand is on the trigger, too. The people who funded the terrorists of 9/11 are guilty of a crime, but under the Greens, they would not be—would they? Should those people be allowed to go free? If someone is giving sustenance, accommodation, and the wherewithal to do such a monstrous act as 9/11, knowing full well what they are doing, have they committed a crime? Well, according to the Greens, the answer is: “No, they haven’t committed a crime.” I say to the Greens that those people have committed a crime against humanity, and what this legislation is doing is recognising that.

We can have our political differences, and we can argue and debate, but what we cannot do is attempt to foist our ideas, policies, and ideology on to others at the point of a gun, or aim a bomb at innocent civilians simply to induce terror to achieve a result. Yet the Greens would have us say that such an action is OK. Maybe there is some consistency in the Greens, because Keith Locke supported the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which was a brutal, brutal attack on a people. That was a terrorist attack by a State on another country. In the Greens’ lopsided political philosophy, everything America does is wrong, everything the West does is wrong, and everything anyone else does to sow terror and dissent against Western nations is right. I think that is the core of the Greens’ opposition to this bill. Mr Locke talked about witch-hunts on communists in the 1950s. I do not think there should be witch-hunts on people because of their views. Here we have Mr Keith Locke—

Ron Mark: Was Mr Locke arrested?

RODNEY HIDE: No, he is an elected member of Parliament, for goodness’ sake!

Dail Jones: He’s a communist.

RODNEY HIDE: Of course he is a communist. He was not arrested. He has the same rights as any other citizen to stand up and say what he thinks. Well, how would he feel if terror were used against his ideas? He would have to oppose it, surely. Where is the consistency in this? We have to stand up as a free nation, as a democratic nation, for the rights of the Keith Lockes to stand for Parliament and for the rights of the Keith Lockes to hold their views, however whacky we may find them. We have to oppose those people who would use force and terror to impose their views on the rest of us. That is what we have to do.

We have to not just oppose the man whose finger is on the trigger; we have to go after the men behind him—the funders, the organisers, and the financiers. I know that Keith Locke, and a lot of people of his ideological ilk, think they will never be able to convince enough people in a free society to agree with them. So the recourse of all communists everywhere has been the gun, the mass terror, and the very things this bill is designed to overcome.

I ask the Greens to think about this. They say they stand for peace. Well, I ask Mr Keith Locke: what do we do to those groups, to those people, who are opposed to peace, who want to sow fear and violence against a population? We know they exist. We have seen it. But what do we do? To ensure peace, we actually have to go after the bad guys.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time.

Ayes 109

New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 9; United Future 7; Progressive 2.

Noes 9

Green Party 8; Maori Party 1.

Bill read a first time.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade): I move, That the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for consideration, that the committee present its final report on or before 31 May 2005, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time during a sitting of the House, except during questions for oral answers, during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 191, and 194(1)(b) and (c).

A party vote

That the motion be agreed to.

Ayes 60

New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 7; Progressive 2.

Noes 58

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 9; Green Party 8; Māori Party 1.

Motion agreed to.

was called for on the question,

The House adjourned at 5.52 p.m.